Description

Pp. 228, b/w illustrations, introduction by Michael Caine, a one-time evacuee. “In the early hours of September 1, 1939, German troops made their way across the border and into Poland. At the same time, thousands of children in Britain rubbed their eyes and climbed from their beds. For many it was years before they would climb back into them. Within hours they joined the crocodile lines of young children making their way to the nearest railway station. Two days later they listened as an angry prime minister told the world that Britain was at war with Germany. Most of the children heard the news from new homes, the homes of ‘borrowed parents.’ They were and forever will be known as the ‘evacuees,’ part of the greatest movement of people that Britain had ever experienced. It was a mammoth operation that voluntarily split families apart as hundreds of thousands of children fled an expected large-scale bombing of helpless civilians.”