Figure 1.--Here are children being evacuatd from London some of the London who had been evacuated (September 1939). They returned home for Christmjas 1939 and are now being reevacuated. The press caption read, "More London Children Evacuate: "The lasy children involved in London's Second Evacuation Plan recently put into affect. The next exodus involved 10,000 children. Shown above are some of the evacuees cheeting as they left Waterloo Station, for reception reas in Devon.' Devon is a largely rural county west of London, best known for dairly farms and cream teas. TV's Faulty Towers is located in Devon. Only Cornwall is further west. There were few targets of importance in both of these western counties.

As a result of tear-stained letters, quite a number of evacuated children came home for Christmas. Few of the children evacuated had any idea that they were leaving their homes for an extended period. Now they knew. But their parents after Christmas were left ith the difficult decision of what to do with them. The Germns had not begun bombing London yet. And now there was a more realistic assessment of the Luftwaffe's capabilities. Few people thught that France was going to fall. And as long as France stood between Britain and the Germans, the Luftwaffe could niot launch a large-scale bombing campaign. Still there was a war and the children were safer in the countryside. Convincing the children that thry needed to return to host families in the countryside as mote difficult than at the outbreak of the War. But quite a number of parents saw that evacuation to the countryside was the safest place for the children. So the Government organized a post-Christmas evacuation. They did not even wait for New Years. It was on a much smaller scale than the September evacuations, but quite a number of parents decided to send their children back to the country. We do not have details on the actual numbers. We do note some 10,000 children evacuated from Waterloo Station after Christmas. The children here were photographed December 28 (figure 1). Some of the children may not havce been evacuate in Seorembr, but we think they were mostly children who cane home fio christmas. We suspect there were several similar evacuariins after Christmas as part of what is dscribed here as a Second Evacuation. This term was soon dropped as the Second Evacuation was the large-scale evacuation that occurred occurred after the fall of France (June 1940) and the beginning of the Battle of Britain (July 1940). Authorities discuoraged children returning or parents visiting their children. The point was to keep the children safe in the countryside. In addition travel back abd forth required the use of badly needed fuel. Oil in particular jad to be imported thriugh U-boat infested waters, thus itvwas severely rationed for civilan use.

Created: 9:24 PM 12/20/2018
Last updated: 9:25 PM 12/20/2018