Evacuation Was a Great Success

Evacuation Was a Great Success

‘Evacuation was a Great Success’ Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

In this essay I will use sources A to F and the evidence that I can take from these sources to evaluate whether or not evacuation was a great success. Sources A to F have differing attitudes towards evacuation so I will have to look at each in turn in order to come to a decision on the success of evacuation.
Firstly, I will examine each of the sources and build an argument for the above statement; starting with source A. Source A is a photograph of evacuees walking (possibly towards the train station or billeting office) in the September of 1939, the month that saw the first mass evacuation in which over one million children were evacuated, from Britain’s major cities and industrial areas. The evacuation plans were given the name ‘Operation Pied Piper', it was vital that these evacuation plans went ahead and if the government were to secure the safety of as many civilians as possible it would need the support of parents. The photograph shows the stereotype of the evacuees, each equipped with a gas mask; name tag and belongings, also notice how also each child is smiling and appears to be very happy that he or she is being evacuated. The source is dated as September 1939, an obviously as it is a photograph it is a very contemporary source and so this gives it a certain amount of validity, however we are not told the author of the photo; by looking at the photograph, I can say with some confidence that the photograph was used by the government as a means to promote evacuation. We now know that the British government censored pictures and information and released propaganda throughout the Second World War, and as source A only shows one side of evacuation – the ‘good’, positive side there is a strong argument for this piece of evidence to be government propaganda and therefore very biased. With that said however, Source A can in some ways be reliable; there were many evacuees that...

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