London Blitz

[Meliora]

I would like to pick up on the question of when the first evacuation of children from London took place.  It was certainly prior to Feb 1941.

I was on holiday in Great Yarmouth in August 1939 when word reached my parents that evacuation of of London was imminent.   We returned home immediately to Tottenham , North London where within a few days I was evacuated with my school to Saffron Walden, Essex.  I don't remember being at home when war as actually declared on Sept. 3rd & the first air raid sirens sounded.  Yes, they actually sounded on that first day, well remembered by my father who had had the foresight to have the Anderson Air-raid shelter installed in the garden by the local council who offered to do this free of charge when the shelters were first delivered.   He was the only one in our road who had it done & after the allclear had sounded there was a continual stream of neighbours trouping thro' our garden wanting to see how the shelter was installed, they then organised groups to help each other dig the big hole needed, & then to bolt the sections of corrugated iron together as this was far beyond the work for a single man to do.

Try this site, it will give you an idea of the work involved in installing the shelter

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=anderson+air+raid+shelter&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=0IaXS4nkI5n-0gSBvJnvCw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQsAQwAA

Meliora

[dawnsh]

Evacuation of children and pregnant mothers started 1st September 1939

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/war/evacuation.htm

Britain declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939

Dawn

[suegill]

If you have a specific name civilians are listed on the Commonwealth War Graves site.

www.cwgc.org

You can also search by a cemetery name.

[stewart_M]

My gran remembers the first attack on 7th Sep 1940.  She said the sky was full of hundreds of bombers and so she chose the clever option: run as fast as she could!!!  She remembered a margerine factory being hit which burned and caused a horrendous stink across the city for several weeks; she never ate margerine again after that as the smell repulsed her!  She also remembered running up the street with her uncle as  a little girl with a German triplane droppping bombs along the street in the first world war.

Stewart

[Nick29]

Evacuation of children and pregnant mothers started 1st September 1939

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/war/evacuation.htm

Britain declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939

Dawn

I seem to get a different answer, depending on whose account I read (fortunately I wasn't born until 3 years after the war ended).  This account suggests that some children were evacuated the day that the Germand invaded Poland (1st February 1939) ?

My mother was evacuated to Suffolk in 1944, when she was pregnant with my sister - she hated the isolation so much, she came back to London on the very next train !   She suffered badly from claustrophobia, and never went down an air-raid shelter - when the sirens went, she would don a tin hat and go out and help the air-raid wardens.  It's a miracle that I'm here at all ! 

[bykerlads]

Many thanks for all the contributions- very useful.