Operation Pied Piper: The Wartime Evacuation That Turned Childhood Upside Down

Operation Pied Piper: The Wartime Evacuation That Turned Childhood Upside Down

For the next little while, I want to move away from the stories of the remarkable people who helped Jewish people during the Second World War and turn our attention to another group whose lives were changed completely by the conflict - the children.

War is often remembered through the eyes of adults, those who fought abroad or those who struggled to keep life going at home.

But we can sometimes overlook the children whose lives were turned upside down almost overnight.

On the 1st of September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, a huge evacuation programme began.

It became known as Operation Pied Piper.

The British government were worried that German bombing would cause enormous casualties in major towns and cities. Plans were made to move children and other vulnerable people away from areas that were considered most at risk.

Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of children were preparing to leave home.

Imagine being only six or seven years old and arriving at a crowded railway station, carrying a small suitcase, a gas mask and a label attached to your clothes.

You might not know where you were going.

You might not know who you would be living with.

And perhaps most frighteningly, you might not know when you would see your parents again.

Many children travelled with their schools, accompanied by teachers and other helpers. They took trains out of cities including London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham towards smaller towns, villages and countryside, these areas were considered safer.

For some children, the journey might have been exciting at first.

For others, it would have been frightening and confusing.

And arriving at their destination brought another uncertainty.

Groups of children could be taken to schools, churches or village halls while local families came forward to provide them with somewhere to stay.

Some were welcomed into warm and loving homes.

Others were not so fortunate.

Brothers and sisters could sometimes be separated, and children found themselves living with complete strangers in surroundings that were very different from anything they had known before.

For a child growing up in a crowded city street, suddenly finding themselves on a farm surrounded by fields and animals could feel very scary.

Homesickness was all too common.

Many children missed their parents and letters became incredibly important.

During the first few days of Operation Pied Piper, around 1.5 million people were evacuated, including schoolchildren, mothers with young children and other vulnerable people.

But the bombing that everyone had feared did not immediately arrive.

During the months that became known as the Phoney War, many evacuated children starting returning home.

Then the danger started again.

As the bombings intensified in 1940, particularly during the Blitz, many children were evacuated again.

For some, wartime childhood became a cycle of leaving home, returning and then being sent away again.

Operation Pied Piper was intended to protect children from the bombs.

But behind those famous photographs of children carrying suitcases and wearing name labels were thousands of individual stories of fear, adventure, loneliness, kindness and uncertainty.

Because the Second World War did not only change the lives of those who fought it.

It changed childhood too.