life
THE ISLAND AT WAR 1939 - 1945
the island at
war
By JUNE ELFORD
A great six part feature in which we look at different aspects which
took place on the island from 1939 - 1945. We talk to survivors, heroes
and in this second part we look at the evacuees who were torn away
from their famlies during those awful times.
Frances & other evacuees pictured in Carisbrooke 1940, all with their Gas Masks.
C
alled Operation Pied Piper, it was
the largest movement of people
ever seen in Britain. Two days
before war was declared on 3 September
1939, the British Government evacuated
one-and-a-half million people in a week to
safe country areas.
The evacuation date was signalled on
54
31 August and by 4 am the following
morning the great evacuation was under
way. School children were accompanied
by their teachers and included in the
Government Evacuation Scheme were
expectant mothers, invalids and blind
persons and children under five who had
to be accompanied by their mothers.
Portsmouth, Southampton and Gosport
had been included in the list of evacuation
areas. As all the schools in Portsmouth
would be closed, the City Council sent out
a leaflet, ‘Evacuation Why and How’ to
all parents explaining that their children
would be sent to reception areas either in
Hampshire, parts of Dorset and Wiltshire
www.wightfrog.com/islandlife