Was Evacuation A Great Success?

I think evacuation was in some ways a great success but in other ways I do not think it worked so well. The government knew that it would be difficult for parents to say goodbye to their children, and forewarned the people of Britain that sacrifices would have to be made. However, it was voluntary meaning it proved a struggle to persuade some people that it was the right thing to do. Sources H, D and B had to advertise evacuation showing that it perhaps did not work as well as they had to use propaganda to make and persuade people to want to send their children to the countryside. Source D shows evacuees enjoying a bath together, they are all smiling and laughing. However, like lots of photos shown at the time, it was published with government permission and to mothers in London. This shows that it was used to convince parents to send their children to the countryside. However, the general idea of evacuation was to send people away from the cities, which had a higher risk of getting bombed, to the countryside where they could live safely. The government predicted that 3,500,000 people would be evacuated in just the first wave. In the first wave of evacuation 1.5 million evacuees left by train due to the fact they found it to hard to send away loved ones or because they wanted to stay home. After Britain declared war, nothing happened for while. This time period became known as the �Phoney War’. Evacuees returned to the cities in the late 1939 until heavy bombing started in the autumn of 1940. Around 100,000 children were evacuated, and in many cases re-evacuated.

The trauma of having to leave families alongside the fact that many of the city children and their foster families did not get on or trust each other makes evacuation not seem such a great success. This is shown in sources, E, F and G as they all describe foster families common views of evacuees which can be trusted as both the mother of the host family and the evacuee have