Evacuation
WW2 evacuation
During WW2, people were concerned about German air raids killing innocent civilians (particularly children). In order to prevent this from happening, mass evacuations, of predominantly children living in cities, began on the 1st of September, 1939 and was named Operation Pied piper. The evacuees were taken to areas that were unlikely to be bombed, such as Devon (as it is a rural area), the children were often taken by their teachers and were transported on trains where their tags would be read to find out their information (for example name, address, school etc.). On arrival, they would mostly be taken to a town/village hall or the local school where they were collected by residents of that place to live with them until it was safe to return to their homes. Luck evacuees got to stay with relatives, but in most cases, siblings were split up and they had to live with total strangers- there are unfortunate accounts where the "temporary parents" forced the evacuees to work long, hard days and did not send them to school. Some evacuees did not see their parents for the entire war, 6 years in total! However, operation Pied Piper was a success as the government relocated more than 3.5 million civilians to a safer location. As you can imagine, the city children were often very confused and worried about their new environment- some of the children didn't know what farm animals were or had never seen a tree in their life. The description of a cow (bellow) may seem comical to us now, and we often would ask, "how can they not know what a cow is?!" But there was simply no reason for city children to know what a cow is because they would most likely never need to milk one or even see one. Also, before WW2, there was very little communication between rural areas, like Devon, and the big cities, like London, so the people living in the city would just no have been educated about cows because they couldn't have communicated with people who actually know about farming. An evacuee's description of a cow:
"The cow is a mamel, it has six sides, right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail, on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away, so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere.Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more.The cow has a fine sense of smell, one can smell it far away. This is the reason for fresh air in the country.The men-cow is called an ox." |
Gas masks?
Near the beginning of the war, British intelligence received secret information about the Nazis plans- the Nazis were planning on invading Britain by using large scale chemical attacks. When the government heard of this, they issued a gas mask (above) to all the citizens of Britain who were in danger of being poisoned, such as people living in large towns and cities, like London. when the Nazis heard that the Britain was so well prepared, they didn't bother bombing Britain after all! When evacuees went to Devon, a gas mask was always part of their essential kit, they would carry their precious gas mask in a box |
An evacuee's account of their evacuation
"I was eleven. My parents took me to Waterloo with my little suitcase. Saying goodbye was unreal, we knew the bombers would come, I would never see them again.
The train full of children and teachers took fourteen hours to get to Seaton junction in Devon. I spent most of that time in the lavatory being sick.
Some of us were taken in a bus to Beer where we were herded into the village school to wait for someone to collect us. That was the hardest part. I was the last to be collected, obviously no-one wanted me, why should they?
After that things got better, my foster parents, a childless couple, were kindness itself. I grew to love Devon and my parents survived."
"I was eleven. My parents took me to Waterloo with my little suitcase. Saying goodbye was unreal, we knew the bombers would come, I would never see them again.
The train full of children and teachers took fourteen hours to get to Seaton junction in Devon. I spent most of that time in the lavatory being sick.
Some of us were taken in a bus to Beer where we were herded into the village school to wait for someone to collect us. That was the hardest part. I was the last to be collected, obviously no-one wanted me, why should they?
After that things got better, my foster parents, a childless couple, were kindness itself. I grew to love Devon and my parents survived."
What an evacuee should to take
Boys
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Girls
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This is the bare essentials, but it is what you should have taken if you were an evacuee. Despite that you shouldn't have taken anything else, many children managed to seek in their favourite toy or book.