On 1st September 1939, the very day that war broke out, Britain began Operation Pied Piper.
This was the evacuation of civilians, mostly children, from urban areas to rural areas in case the Germans bombed the cities.
From September 1939 until June 1940 - when the Battle of Britain started - around 1.5 million children were evacuated from major urban areas to the countryside.
A further wave of evacuation occurred in June 1940, when the British expected Germany to launch a seaborne invasion.
When the Blitz, the huge bombing of British cities by the Luftwaffe, started in June 1940, turning British cities to rubble and causing great fires, a further evacuation of children from these devastated areas occurred.
This was a wise decision. By the time the Blitz ended in May 1941, 43,000 civilians had been killed and a million houses in London alone had been destroyed.
Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Clydebank, Coventry, Greenock, Sheffield, Swansea, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham and Southampton, suffered heavy air raids and high numbers of casualties. To this day, many cities still bear the scars of the Blitz. Coventry Cathedral still lies as a ruined shell to this day.
On the night of 29th/30th December 1940, London was so ablaze it has been named "The Second Great Fire of London", destroying an area probably greater than in 1666.
1,500 fires blazed across the city, from Islington to St Paul's Graveyard.
St Paul's Cathedral itself was only saved by the dedication of the London firemen who kept the fire away from the Cathedral and the volunteer firewatchers of the St Paul's Watch who fought to keep the flames from firebombs on its roof from spreading
Many ancient Livery Halls were destroyed (108 Livery Companies are based in the City of London) and the medieval Great Hall of the City's Guildhall was gutted (a grand timber roof rebuilt after the 1666 fire was destroyed).
These evacuated children went to live with other families - families who were complete strangers to them.
Many went to kind, caring families who, if they lived on the farm, allowed the evacuated children to help with the farm work.
But many went to evacuees were sent to people who were downright cruel to them, and many horror stories emerged about children being bullied or beaten by their cruel hosts and members of the older generation today, who were evacuees, often recount their memories of evacuation to their families (my grandparents were evacuated during the War, and they have some horror stories from their time staying with cruel hosts. They also remember seeing the night sky in the distance, miles away, glowing orange as Manchester burned).
Now, to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the War, and the start of evacuation, here are some pictures which give some idea of what Britain's World War II evacuated children had to go through.....
Evacuating wartime London
The Telegraph
Orders to begin the official Government Evacuation Scheme were issued at 11.17am on 31st August 1939, and the first evacuees left London the next morning. In the next four days, 376,652 schoolchildren and 275,895 younger children with their mothers left the capital for areas of greater safety. Across the rest of the country, 757,583 schoolchildren and 445,580 younger children left urban areas deemed vulnerable to air attack for the safety of the countryside. Hailed initially as “A Triumph of British Civilian Organisation”, evacuee “atrocity” stories soon began to appear in the press. But as “Picture Post” magazine argued: “...to carry out a social revolution such as this in four days without a hitch would be a miracle.”
One teacher, evacuated with his pupils to Brighton told Mass Observation: “ The first week of evacuation was unbearable. The rumours of lousy, dirty, ill behaved children bandied about Brighton were exasperating. We knew that 90 per cent of the children were well behaved and happy. But the only stories regaled to me were of the horrors of the wild London children.” Despite these stories most people still agreed with “Picture Post” that “...one fact remains-evacuation is essential.” And on a happier note, a middle aged couple in Kettering, unable to have children of their own, wrote to the magazine: “ They scream and race about the place and yesterday the little girl was sick on the drawing room carpet. But that’s what we have always wanted. Thank God for our little evacuees!”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
Hitler began his invasion of Poland in the early morning of Friday 1st September 1939. The story was broken by “Daily Telegraph” special correspondent Clare Hollingworth in Katowice who telephoned the news to her colleague Hugh Carleton Greene in Warsaw. The Foreign Office in London heard the news from Reuters at 7.28am, and an hour later official confirmation came from British Embassy in Warsaw. Alfred Duff Cooper, who had resigned in disgust from the Government over Munich, heard the news at Goodwood golf club from the club secretary: “As we left he said to me ‘Hitler started on Poland this morning.’ I asked him what he meant. He said that the Germans had invaded Poland and bombed several cities. He took it quite calmly. That was how I heard the war had started. The news came to me as a relief.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
When civilian gas masks had been distributed during the Munich Crisis in September 1938 there was no provision for the protection of babies and infants. This was rectified a few months later on 13th March 1939, when tests for gas helmets for babies and infants took place at Holborn Town Hall. The tests were successful and within a few months 1,400,000 were produced and distributed. Throughout the 1930s, the fear of poison gas attacks against civilians had haunted the public and civil defence planners alike. In his 1933 pacifist tract “Cry Havoc!” the writer Beverley Nichols had quoted an eminent scientific source who claimed “There is in existence no means of preventing an aeroplane flotilla flying over London tomorrow and spreading over millions of Londoners a gas which would asphyxiate those millions in a relatively short time.”
Picture: KEYSTONE/GETTY
Although in the autumn of 1939 there were many “atrocity” stories in the press about Evacuation, there were also heart-warming ones like that sent by Mrs E A Hemming of Great King S treet, Hockley, Birmingham to “Picture Post”: My son, just six years old, has been evacuated to Monmouth, South Wales. I went to see him on Sunday, and I can’t really express my gratitude and how much I appreciate the kindness shown to him and myself in the wonderful way in which we were welcomed. I didn’t think there was so much kindness in this world. If you could see the smiling faces in Monmouth, it would do you a world of good.”
The problems brought about by the Government Evacuation Scheme were debated in Parliament on 14th September 1939: “It is not surprising that the House of Commons was impelled last night to discuss the problems of evacuation. Certain troubles were bound to follow the dispersal of nearly a million and a half town dwellers, most children and women, into the country and other places of safety. None of the complaints.......has been trivial or unreasonable...The Ministries of Health and Education have, in communications to the local authorities, recognized the necessity for remedial measures, and are stirring up the authorities to helpful and sympathetic action, assuring them of Treasury assistance.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
In January 1939, over twenty million copies of the 56 page “National Service Guide” were delivered to all British households. Detailing all civil and military voluntary organizations, it contained a foreword by Sir John Anderson, the minister responsible for Air Raid Precautions. It also included a “Call to National Service from the Prime Minister” in which Chamberlain wrote: “The desire of all of us is to leave at peace with our neighbours. But to secure peace we must be strong. The country needs your services and you are anxious to play your part. This guide will point the way. I ask you to read it carefully and decide how you can best help.” Within a week of delivery, over 100,000 application forms included in the Guide had been completed and returned.
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
As the evacuees began to settle into their new homes, “the daily press of that period did much to spread the story of the successful venture. Boys and girls who had never seen farm-life before provided good material for the Press photographer. He was able to snap groups of happy children racing down the village lane when the lunch-bell rang, or setting out on a blackberrying expedition, or watching one of their number emulating Henry Cotton on the golf course....” The reality could be somewhat different as novelist Evelyn Waugh recorded in his diary on 8th September 1939: “The discontent among the evacuees has increased. Seven families left the village amid general satisfaction. Those who remain spend their leisure scattering waste paper round my gates.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
As well as schoolchildren and infants with their mothers, the Government Evacuation Scheme also embraced other groups deemed vulnerable to air attack. These included expectant mothers and blind and physically handicapped adults. Hospital patients were also evacuated in order that their beds might be ready for the anticipated thousands of air raid casualties. To help evacuate them, London Passenger Transport Board’s distinctive “Green Line” buses were converted into motor ambulances. At Highgate Hospital Nursing Sister Gwyneth Thomas was responsible for getting some of the very young children ready for evacuation, including nine month old Paul who had been in the hospital’s isolation ward. In her diary Sister Thomas asked herself, “ What type of lunatic is this man Hitler to cause such an upheaval in our lives?”
• For further information about how the Imperial War Museum is marking the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War across all of its branches visit: www.iwm.org.uk/wardeclared
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
On the first day of Evacuation an observer from Mass Observation was at Victoria Station: “12.30pm: A party of school-children have just come in and are on the platform, girls and boys. There are about 200 people waiting near the barrier, and about 80% of these are women...Women are quiet and all gaze toward the platform, some mopping eyes with handkerchiefs....Teachers are mostly smiling. Some stop a second or so to talk to a parent, in confident voices. ‘ They’ll be all right,’ says one to a mother. When the last (children) have gone through, the police close the barrier, and parents move up and stand close against the railings, children stop near other end of platform, sit on cases or seats, teachers standing up among them, and wave to parents, who wave back to them. ‘Well, we can’t do any more,’ says one woman. ‘Thank God they’ve gone.’
telegraph.co.uk
This was the evacuation of civilians, mostly children, from urban areas to rural areas in case the Germans bombed the cities.
From September 1939 until June 1940 - when the Battle of Britain started - around 1.5 million children were evacuated from major urban areas to the countryside.
A further wave of evacuation occurred in June 1940, when the British expected Germany to launch a seaborne invasion.
When the Blitz, the huge bombing of British cities by the Luftwaffe, started in June 1940, turning British cities to rubble and causing great fires, a further evacuation of children from these devastated areas occurred.
This was a wise decision. By the time the Blitz ended in May 1941, 43,000 civilians had been killed and a million houses in London alone had been destroyed.
Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Clydebank, Coventry, Greenock, Sheffield, Swansea, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham and Southampton, suffered heavy air raids and high numbers of casualties. To this day, many cities still bear the scars of the Blitz. Coventry Cathedral still lies as a ruined shell to this day.
On the night of 29th/30th December 1940, London was so ablaze it has been named "The Second Great Fire of London", destroying an area probably greater than in 1666.
1,500 fires blazed across the city, from Islington to St Paul's Graveyard.
St Paul's Cathedral itself was only saved by the dedication of the London firemen who kept the fire away from the Cathedral and the volunteer firewatchers of the St Paul's Watch who fought to keep the flames from firebombs on its roof from spreading
Many ancient Livery Halls were destroyed (108 Livery Companies are based in the City of London) and the medieval Great Hall of the City's Guildhall was gutted (a grand timber roof rebuilt after the 1666 fire was destroyed).
These evacuated children went to live with other families - families who were complete strangers to them.
Many went to kind, caring families who, if they lived on the farm, allowed the evacuated children to help with the farm work.
But many went to evacuees were sent to people who were downright cruel to them, and many horror stories emerged about children being bullied or beaten by their cruel hosts and members of the older generation today, who were evacuees, often recount their memories of evacuation to their families (my grandparents were evacuated during the War, and they have some horror stories from their time staying with cruel hosts. They also remember seeing the night sky in the distance, miles away, glowing orange as Manchester burned).
Now, to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the War, and the start of evacuation, here are some pictures which give some idea of what Britain's World War II evacuated children had to go through.....
Evacuating wartime London
The Telegraph
Orders to begin the official Government Evacuation Scheme were issued at 11.17am on 31st August 1939, and the first evacuees left London the next morning. In the next four days, 376,652 schoolchildren and 275,895 younger children with their mothers left the capital for areas of greater safety. Across the rest of the country, 757,583 schoolchildren and 445,580 younger children left urban areas deemed vulnerable to air attack for the safety of the countryside. Hailed initially as “A Triumph of British Civilian Organisation”, evacuee “atrocity” stories soon began to appear in the press. But as “Picture Post” magazine argued: “...to carry out a social revolution such as this in four days without a hitch would be a miracle.”
One teacher, evacuated with his pupils to Brighton told Mass Observation: “ The first week of evacuation was unbearable. The rumours of lousy, dirty, ill behaved children bandied about Brighton were exasperating. We knew that 90 per cent of the children were well behaved and happy. But the only stories regaled to me were of the horrors of the wild London children.” Despite these stories most people still agreed with “Picture Post” that “...one fact remains-evacuation is essential.” And on a happier note, a middle aged couple in Kettering, unable to have children of their own, wrote to the magazine: “ They scream and race about the place and yesterday the little girl was sick on the drawing room carpet. But that’s what we have always wanted. Thank God for our little evacuees!”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
Hitler began his invasion of Poland in the early morning of Friday 1st September 1939. The story was broken by “Daily Telegraph” special correspondent Clare Hollingworth in Katowice who telephoned the news to her colleague Hugh Carleton Greene in Warsaw. The Foreign Office in London heard the news from Reuters at 7.28am, and an hour later official confirmation came from British Embassy in Warsaw. Alfred Duff Cooper, who had resigned in disgust from the Government over Munich, heard the news at Goodwood golf club from the club secretary: “As we left he said to me ‘Hitler started on Poland this morning.’ I asked him what he meant. He said that the Germans had invaded Poland and bombed several cities. He took it quite calmly. That was how I heard the war had started. The news came to me as a relief.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
When civilian gas masks had been distributed during the Munich Crisis in September 1938 there was no provision for the protection of babies and infants. This was rectified a few months later on 13th March 1939, when tests for gas helmets for babies and infants took place at Holborn Town Hall. The tests were successful and within a few months 1,400,000 were produced and distributed. Throughout the 1930s, the fear of poison gas attacks against civilians had haunted the public and civil defence planners alike. In his 1933 pacifist tract “Cry Havoc!” the writer Beverley Nichols had quoted an eminent scientific source who claimed “There is in existence no means of preventing an aeroplane flotilla flying over London tomorrow and spreading over millions of Londoners a gas which would asphyxiate those millions in a relatively short time.”
Picture: KEYSTONE/GETTY
Although in the autumn of 1939 there were many “atrocity” stories in the press about Evacuation, there were also heart-warming ones like that sent by Mrs E A Hemming of Great King S treet, Hockley, Birmingham to “Picture Post”: My son, just six years old, has been evacuated to Monmouth, South Wales. I went to see him on Sunday, and I can’t really express my gratitude and how much I appreciate the kindness shown to him and myself in the wonderful way in which we were welcomed. I didn’t think there was so much kindness in this world. If you could see the smiling faces in Monmouth, it would do you a world of good.”
The problems brought about by the Government Evacuation Scheme were debated in Parliament on 14th September 1939: “It is not surprising that the House of Commons was impelled last night to discuss the problems of evacuation. Certain troubles were bound to follow the dispersal of nearly a million and a half town dwellers, most children and women, into the country and other places of safety. None of the complaints.......has been trivial or unreasonable...The Ministries of Health and Education have, in communications to the local authorities, recognized the necessity for remedial measures, and are stirring up the authorities to helpful and sympathetic action, assuring them of Treasury assistance.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
In January 1939, over twenty million copies of the 56 page “National Service Guide” were delivered to all British households. Detailing all civil and military voluntary organizations, it contained a foreword by Sir John Anderson, the minister responsible for Air Raid Precautions. It also included a “Call to National Service from the Prime Minister” in which Chamberlain wrote: “The desire of all of us is to leave at peace with our neighbours. But to secure peace we must be strong. The country needs your services and you are anxious to play your part. This guide will point the way. I ask you to read it carefully and decide how you can best help.” Within a week of delivery, over 100,000 application forms included in the Guide had been completed and returned.
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
As the evacuees began to settle into their new homes, “the daily press of that period did much to spread the story of the successful venture. Boys and girls who had never seen farm-life before provided good material for the Press photographer. He was able to snap groups of happy children racing down the village lane when the lunch-bell rang, or setting out on a blackberrying expedition, or watching one of their number emulating Henry Cotton on the golf course....” The reality could be somewhat different as novelist Evelyn Waugh recorded in his diary on 8th September 1939: “The discontent among the evacuees has increased. Seven families left the village amid general satisfaction. Those who remain spend their leisure scattering waste paper round my gates.”
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
As well as schoolchildren and infants with their mothers, the Government Evacuation Scheme also embraced other groups deemed vulnerable to air attack. These included expectant mothers and blind and physically handicapped adults. Hospital patients were also evacuated in order that their beds might be ready for the anticipated thousands of air raid casualties. To help evacuate them, London Passenger Transport Board’s distinctive “Green Line” buses were converted into motor ambulances. At Highgate Hospital Nursing Sister Gwyneth Thomas was responsible for getting some of the very young children ready for evacuation, including nine month old Paul who had been in the hospital’s isolation ward. In her diary Sister Thomas asked herself, “ What type of lunatic is this man Hitler to cause such an upheaval in our lives?”
• For further information about how the Imperial War Museum is marking the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War across all of its branches visit: www.iwm.org.uk/wardeclared
Picture: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
On the first day of Evacuation an observer from Mass Observation was at Victoria Station: “12.30pm: A party of school-children have just come in and are on the platform, girls and boys. There are about 200 people waiting near the barrier, and about 80% of these are women...Women are quiet and all gaze toward the platform, some mopping eyes with handkerchiefs....Teachers are mostly smiling. Some stop a second or so to talk to a parent, in confident voices. ‘ They’ll be all right,’ says one to a mother. When the last (children) have gone through, the police close the barrier, and parents move up and stand close against the railings, children stop near other end of platform, sit on cases or seats, teachers standing up among them, and wave to parents, who wave back to them. ‘Well, we can’t do any more,’ says one woman. ‘Thank God they’ve gone.’
telegraph.co.uk
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