The Imperial War Museum: Children’s War Exhibit

The Imperial War Museum houses an eclectic collection of artifacts and information about Great Britain’s involvement in WWI and WWII. Visitors can explore a wide array of collections from a model submarine from WWI times to an artificial reenactment of a bomb being dropped during The Blitz in London. The museum’s most visited exhibit is the Holocaust exhibition which explores Britain’s battle against Nazi power, Hitler’s rise to power and the genocide of millions of Jewish people from 1937-45. One exhibit in particular caught my attention while I was at the museum: The Children’s War Exhibit. The exhibit explored WWII through the eyes of children in London who were involved in the evacuation program, Pied Piper, and, in order to escape the dangers of the Blitz, were moved out of central London and into country towns where it was believed they would be much safer. First sight of the exhibit immediately invited thoughts of C.S. Lewis’ Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but exploration of the exhibit helped me realize the extent to which the Blitz affected London as a community and the true danger that families who resided here faced, making their evacuation inevitable.

As the bombing in London increased and the danger levels skyrocketed in the first years of British involvement in WWII, evacuations of civilians were implemented to save the population of urban and military areas from the deadly and constant German military bombing. It is widely known that thousands of children were removed from central London during this time, but many other civilians were also evacuated. There was a steady evacuation flow of evacuees during 1939, but the official evacuations, called for by the Pied Piper Act, began on September 1, 1939, two days before the official declaration of war. Evacuees were gathered in groups and placed on the first available train, regardless of its destination. By the end of the war, almost 3.75 million people had been moved, with over a third of Britain’s population overall experiencing some effects of the evacuation (Cox 17-18).

In the first three days of evacuation alone some 1,500,000 people were moved: 827,000 school-aged children, 524,000 mothers and young children under 5, 13,000 pregnant woman, 7,000 disabled persons and over 100,000 teachers and other helpers. Families were separated and children were literally sent wherever the next train was headed. These helpers volunteered to leave their homes in London and travel to the countryside where they would become caretakers for children who had been separated from their parents (“The Children’s War”). The initial evacuation was enormous, but the fleeing wasn’t over yet.

A second evacuation effort was started after the fall of France in 1940. During a weeks time in June around 100,000 were evacuated or re-evacuated. They were removed from coastal towns which faced German controlled areas. By the end of July over 200,000 children had been moved. Some towns in Kent and East Anglia had evacuated over 40% of their populations (“The Children’s War”). Along with this internal movement, refugees were also constantly arriving from continental Europe.

After years of resistance, London eventually proved resilient to bombing in major urban areas despite the constant bombardment and extreme destruction. In September 1944 the evacuation process was officially halted and reversed for most areas except for London and the East Coast. Return to London was not approved until June 1945. The cultural impacts of the evacuations had been enormous as families were separated and children left on their own with caretakers (Engel 85-89). Upon return to cities thousands of people found their homes in ruins soliciting a major rebuilding of London and many other places throughout the United Kingdom. WWII had affected Great Britain at the very core of its population; the Blitz forced every citizen to share some sort of first hand involvement in the war. Unlike citizens in America who were affected only through the eyes of their friends and family who were serving in the military, nearly the whole of the British population experienced the effects of the war personally and individually.

Works Cited

Cox, Noel. "The Continuity of Government in the Face of Enemy Attack - The British Experience, Part 1". Forts and Works 6 (1998): 17-19.

Engel, Mary. "Children and War." Peabody Journal of Education 61.3, The Legacy of Nicholas Hobbs: Research on Education and Human Development in the Public Interest: Part 2 (1984): 71-90.

“The Children’s War: The Second World War Through the Eyes of Children in Britain.” Imperial War Museum: London. 5 Jun 2008.