In the 1930s aerial bombing became an ever larger spectre in the minds of government and the public (Trenchaerd, Douhet, Spain etc). The fear that major cities would be utterly destroyed in any war led the government to plan for the evacuations of civilians from probable targets in order to save them from terror and destruction.
The official view of the impact of bombing began with the ARP Committee of 1924. It made some, in hindsight, rather hysterical casualty predictions for a future conflict. These high estimates were increased throughout the 1930s.
The Air Raid Precautions service was activated on September 25, 1938. So began a brief flurry of preparations - certain buildings had their basements requisiton for shelters, public parks were spoiled with numerous slit trenches, fifty barrage balloons rose into the sky over London, and almost forty million gas masks were distributed. Certain people, already panicky, pre-empted the government and sought refuge in more rural areas.
On September 29, 1938 the Government announced plans to evacuate around two million people from London in the event of war. Based on the pre-war reports this was seen as necessary to reduce demoralization and control the "inevitable" panic.
The plan
The plan had been developed in the summer of 1938. The country was divided into zones, classified as either "evacuation," "neutral," or "reception." With priority evacuees being moved from the major urban centres and billeted on the available private housing in more rural counties. Each area covered roughly a third of the population, although a number of urban areas later bombed were not classified for evacuation. In early 1939 the reception areas compiled lists of available housing. Space for 4.8 million people was found and the Government also constructed camps for a few more thousand spaces.
In the early summer of 1939 the government began publicising its plan through the local authorities, and quickly found it had over-estimated demand. Expecting 80% evacuation from the urban areas in the event only half of all school-aged children were moved. There was enormous regional variation, with towns in Yorkshire moving only 15% of their children or less, while in Manchester and Liverpool over 60% of children were evacuated. The refusal of central Government to spend large sums on preparation also dampened the effectiveness of the plan.
The first evacuation
There was a steady flow of evacuees from June 1939. On September 1 the official evacuation began. From London and the other main cities, the priority class people were bundled onto trains and dispatched to rural towns and villages in the designated areas. With the uncertainties over registering for evacuation the actual movement was also disjointed - as evacuees arrived at the stations they were gathered into groups and put on the first available train, regardless of its destination. School and family groups were further separated in the transfer from mainline trains to more local transport. This exacerbated problems in reception areas, a few areas were overwhelmed (notably the East Anglian ports sent children from east London by ship), most were not (as counties no area received more that half the expected number) but found themselves receiving 'wrong' people - evacuees from a priority class different from their preparations.
Almost 3.75 million people were moved, with around a third of the entire population experiencing some effects of the evacuation. In the first three days of official evacuation almost 1.5 million people were moved - 800,000 school-aged children, 500,000 mothers and young children, 12,000 pregnant women, 7,000 disabled persons, and over 100,000 teachers and other 'helpers.' The initial move was undertaken in quite high spirits and there were no serious accidents.
A further two million or so more wealthy individuals evacuated 'privately' - settling in hotels for the duration, although several thousands took themselves further, to Canada, the USA, and the Caribbean.
The Government also undertook measues to save itself. Under Plan Yellow some 23,000 civil servants and their paperwork were dispatched to available hotels in the better coastal resorts and spa towns. In preparation for the expected destruction of London, other hotels were requisitioned and emptied for any 'Black Move' - the Government fleeing the capital.
Other prominent groups also evacuated. Art treasures were sent to distant storage, the National Gallery collection spent the war at a quarry in North Wales. The Bank of England descended on the small town of Overton. The BBC moved variety production to Bristol and senior staff to a manor near Evesham. A number of other firms also moved head offices from the capital, or at least moved the most vital records to comparative safety.
On September 3, at 11.27, the first air raid siren sounded over London. An unscheduled French aircraft provoked the alert and the two RAF squadrons sent into the air managed to briefly attack each other, two aircraft were destroyed and a pilot killed. So began the war at home.
With the Luftwaffe declining to pound British cities into rubble, and with many-to-most priority class people still present, the evacuation plan's value became precarious. Without the 'needed' emergency, and without additional funds or organization, the reception areas developed both social and economic problems.
The first and immediate problem was housing. The low number of evacuees did not threaten the supply, but who should go to which home became a stressful question. With no guide-lines to the distribution of the evacuees many reception centres either handed the arrivals out almost at random or the centres came to resemble markets - people choosing 'suitable' children.
Linked to the housing was the social differences created by the evacuation. The designation of the priorities and the evacuated areas meant that the majority of the people were from the most socially deprived neighbourhoods. While those with 'surplus accommodation' were equally likely to be, in comparison, wealthy. Efforts were made to match "like with like," but there are many, many stories of the most unsuitable pairings. However it was also noted that those most able to have evacuees, the upper middle-class, were also the group least affected by the evacuation.
The stark demonstration of the levels of urban poverty and deprivation shocked people. It is certain that the press and politicians exaggerated the extent of the problems, and much tension was the result of the interruption to habit and routine rather than particularly 'dreadful children.' A study suggested maybe 5% of the children lacked toilet training, in that they by habit defecated on newspaper which was then thrown on a fire, while possibly 25% or so had some, almost unavoidable, infestation - often head lice. Evidence of deliberate neglect was, mercifully, very rare.
It is unclear what long term effects evacuation had on the children. For those younger children evacuated without parents or even siblings, the upheaval sometimes proved traumatic.
Public pressure on their MPs quickly became apparent, there was a parliamentary debate on September 14, and only a week into the evacuation programme efforts were quickly reduced to moving only if raids were occurring. 670,000 children were to be included in the scheme, with medical check-ups and guarantees before-hand; by early 1940 less than 20% of the target group had registered.
This slow-down was also reflected in individual cases. Without a 'cause' for evacuation people went back home. By January 1940 some 700,000 people had returned home in England and Wales, including some 90% of the mothers with young children. As well as "no bombs," familial feeling, money problems, and other social factors encouraged the drift back home. By August 1940 there were just 519,000 official evacuees.
Government financial support, an allowance to householders, did not start until October 1940 and the Government demanded a means test and also contributions from the evacuees parents. The allowance for children was a flat rate of 10/6 for the first child and 8/6 for each additional child, mothers were worth 5/- and her children 3/- each - the mother was expected to provide and prepare food. These sums provoked some turmoil - adequate for some, many middle class householders saw them as insufficient for "full board and lodgings," especially when food prices increased by an eighth in the first three months of war. Parents of evacuated children were expected to contribute up to 6/- a week, average contributions were 2/3, while 25% of parents were means tested as earning too little to make any assistance. Despite this penny-pinching there are many recorded instances of evacuated children physically responding very favourably to their new diet and environment. The allowance was raised in 1940 and again in 1942 and 1944, although the rises did not come close to matching increasing prices.
Over the slightly longer term there were major problems with schooling. The evacuation plan were secret so the education authorities were given no forewarning to prepare reception areas, the limited supply of appropriate buildings was a serious bottle-neck (indeed some 2,000 schools were requisition for other purposes). Although teachers were sent with 'their' children, the scattering of the evacuees across towns and villages made organisation very difficult, but the reduction in class sizes could be beneficial. Some strained areas took the children into local schools by adopting the WW I expedient of 'double shift education' - taking twice as long but also doubling the number taught. The movement of teachers also meant that children staying home 'suffered,' with city schools closed almost a million were left without a source of education. These were partially reopened, before closing again during the Blitz.
Later evacuations
With the end of the Phony War and the fall of France there was another evacuation effort. From June 13-18, 1940 around 100,000 children were evacuted (in many cases re-evacuated), with efforts also being made to remove the vulnerable from coast towns in southern and eastern England. By July over 200,000 children had been moved and some towns in Kent and East Anglia were 40% smaller. Also some 30,000 people arrived from the Continent and on June 20-24 25,000 people were evacuted to Britain from the Channel Islands.
Men of German (and later Italian) origin were interned from May 12, 1940, by July almost all men under seventy were held in military camps, mainly on the Isle of Man. At first un-necessary mistreatment was common, and many interned were refugees from Hitler. This foolishness was soon reversed. For many interned persons the conditions in the camps were not especially unpleasant.
In May 1940 the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was created, to organise the evacuation of children to the Dominions. A suprising 210,000 applications were made by July when the scheme closed. However shipping shortages quickly slowed the evacuation to a crawl and after the sinking of the City of Benares on September 17 the entire plan was scrapped with just 2,664 children moved. It is estimated that some 13,000 children were privately evacuated overseas.
When the Blitz began in September 1940 there were clear grounds for evacuations. Chastened by the earlier efforts the Government did not seek compulsory evacuation, instead free travel and billeting allowance was offered to those who made private arrangements, and were children, old, disabled, pregnant, ill, or who had lost their homes (some 250,000 in the first six weeks in London). There was a slow, unspectacular uptake, by the combination of all the state and private efforts London's population was reduced by a little less than 25%. As bombing encompassed more towns 'assisted private evacuation' was extended.
London, despite being most heavily attacked, proved especially resilient to bombing. The destruction wrought in the smaller towns was much more likely to provoke panic and spontaneous evacuations. The number of official evacuees rose to a peak of 1.37 million by February 1941. By September it stood at just over one million, by the end of 1943 there were just 350,000 people officially billeted. But the V-1 attacks from June 1944 provoked a significant exodus from London, estimates are that up to 1.5 million people left by September - only 20% being 'official' evacuees.
From September, 1944 the evacuation process was officially halted and "put in reverse" for most areas except for London and the east coast. Returning to London was not officially approved until June, 1945. In March, 1946 the billeting scheme was ended, with 38,000 people still unhoused.
Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46
