Talk:Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II/Archive 1

comments from article proper
The following is a quote from the article - I moved the question in brackets out of the article to this page. On September 29 '''[What year, please? This article lacks a proper introduction.]''' the Government announced plans to evacuate around two million people from London in the event of war. Based on the pre-war reports this was seen as necessary to reduce demoralization and control the "inevitable" panic. Krupo 04:18, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * Additionally, and I present a quote from the article just below The Phony War "On September 3, at 11.27, the first air raid siren sounded over London. An unscheduled French aircraft provoked the alert" - This may be in the context of the year given above (1939), however that is in another section and it is therefore ambiguous. I would put in the date I think it is (being 1939), but I'm not sure. --Lor772 01:25, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)--

Garbled sentences
On 17 April 2006 at 3:07 I removed the following two sentences which seem completely garbled. If the content is pertinent, the sentences should be rewritten. --Mikebrand 03:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

5/- and her children 3/- each &mdash; the mother was expected to provide and prepare food. These sums provoked some turmoil &mdash; many middle class householders saw them as villages made organisation very difficult.

In the first section of the main article it is not clear whether 3.5 million people or 1.5 million people were evacuated. There seems to be ambiguity between people/children, evacuated/relocated. Please can someone help Mountain9 (talk) 16:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Citing and sourcing
Has anyone looked ahte online records of the London Gazette? See here for WW2 records 1939-1948. Im sure there would be something about this in there. Can anyone cite the 1.2million suicides? It seems a bit high. RHB 00:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have deleted the claims of 1.2 million suicides. Lester (Psychol Rep. 1994 Dec;75(3 Pt 1):1154. ) and Henderson et al (BMC Public Health. 2006; 6: 167) found that suicide rates in the civilian population increased slightly in 1939-42 (around 9,000-12,000 additional suicides in the years when the war wasn't going well) and declined to half the 1939 level by 1946 (attributed to higher employment and the war going the Allies' way). The total numbers were in the range of a few thousand per year. Certainly nowhere near 1.2 million. The suicide rate was actually higher in 1933, the year unemployment peaked during the Great Depression, that at any time during the war. Dbromage 06:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Similar actions in Germany during WW2
When I read the article I noticed that the de:Kinderlandverschickung (approx. Children evacuation) is virtually the same event during the Second World War in Germany. Maybe there are other nations too that had such actions? How about transforming this into a more general article on that topic (with a shorter article name?) Arnomane 12:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * German article looks excellent (includes important UK stuff that Eng-lang article misses!) and deserves to be translated. I'd suggest articles for each country plus unifying article on whole topic of such evacuations - surely they've happened other than during WWII? JackyR | Talk 02:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Language
Reading through this, there seems to be large sections of text that are disjointed or badly written (I think possibly where details have been edited). I may try and do some work on it unless someone else wants to have a go? Spookydel (talk) 15:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

more confusing sentences
In the late summer of 1939, the government began publicising its plan through the local authorities. They had an underestimated demand; only half of all school-aged children were moved from the urban areas instead of the expected 80%. There was enormous regional variation of more than 15% of their children, while over 60% of children were evacuated in Manchester and Liverpool. The refusal of the central government to spend large sums on preparation also reduced the effectiveness of the plan


 * If they expected to move 80% and only moved half,  then they had overestimated demand.  Not underestimated.Eregli bob (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Men of German (and later Italian) origin were interned from May 12, 1940. Many interned were refugees from Adolf Hitler. By July, almost all of these men under seventy were held in military camps, mainly on the Isle of Man. '''At first, unnecessary mistreatment was common. For many interned persons the conditions in the camps were not especially unpleasant. These conditions were soon reversed.'''

I wish I could fix them but I don't know what is supposed to be said. Readin (talk) 03:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * May 1940 was the time of the Battle of Britain when many in the UK feared a possible German invasion - Operation Sea Lion - and so German refugees in the UK were interned temporarily as a safety precaution for the defence of the UK, it not being possible to 'vet' (security check) them all in time - some could possibly have been Abwehr agents posing as refugees. Most genuine refugees were then released later when the danger of invasion had receded.


 * The interment camps were not luxurious but they were also not prison camps, so although confined to the Isle of Man the internees were not treated as 'enemy' persons, just persons who's loyalty could not at-present be verified.

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090508115900/http://www.ushmm.org/assets/documents/united_kingdom/boe.htm to http://www.ushmm.org/assets/documents/united_kingdom/boe.htm

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Requested move 23 June 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There has been a lack of policy-based supports for this move. (non-admin closure).  Anarchyte  ( work  &#124;  talk )   06:43, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Evacuations of civilians in Britain during the Second World War → Evacuations of civilians in the United Kingdom during the Second World War – move affected people across the whole UK and not just the island of Britain – 98.122.20.56 (talk) 18:06, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:07, 23 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Britain isn't an island, Great Britain is, but Britain isn't. Not necessarily opposed to the move but think its needs discussion given IP's rationale is completely factually incorrect. Ebonelm (talk) 22:23, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * @Ebonelm: It's not like you haven't made a valid distinction. However, 'Britain' is an ambiguous name for the country, easily confused with the island. Few people really know the distinction (even in the UK) that the island naame is actually 'Great Britain'. Americans, amongst others, are often confused. I've even witnessed English people asking, for example, if they needed to change their money to Euros in order to visit Northern Ireland. The ambiguity is easily solved by the unambiguous name 'United Kingdom', or 'UK'.
 * I don't think my rationale is "completely factually incorrect": the evacuations DID take place in locations throughout the whole of the UK. They were NOT confined to the island of (Great) Britain. 'Britain' is, by the way, often used as shorthand for the island - even by professionals in the fields of writing, anthropology and history - no matter how inaccurate or incorrect. In fact, by some scholarly rationale, 'Britain' consists ONLY of England and Wales.
 * The Wikipedia article you linked to - Great Britain - even makes this clear. And by 'clear', I mean 'muddy', of course! It states, above the lede:
 * "This article is about the island. For the state of which it is part, see United Kingdom. For the historical state, see Kingdom of Great Britain. For other uses, see Great Britain (disambiguation) and Britain (disambiguation)."
 * Then, at the very start of the lede, it states:
 * "Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island" (my emphasis)
 * The tendency, throughout Wikipedia (though it isn't consistent), is to use 'United Kingdom' - particularly in categories.
 * The United Kingdom, although still a shortened name (in common with 'Britain'), seems to be the logical and more formal choice when discussing the country, as it is almost completely unambiguous, and doesn't cherry-pick one specific region of the country or confuse it with the name of an island.
 * @Anthony Appleyard: Thanks for the heads-up. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 05:23, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't the notice for discussion be on the article page, btw? --98.122.20.56 (talk) 05:26, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Some processes are different, but RM does not announce on the article page. Please read WP:RM about the process. (I also removed a duplicate RM that you submitted a day after this one) Also, I !vote oppose. There are only 3 mentions of "Wales" in the article (a destination, not a place where evacuations are taking place), no mention of "Scotland" or "Northern Ireland". And per Ebonelm above. UK seems a bit broad given the current article contents. — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 21:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Problems with lead
The lead is supposed to provide a summary of the article, ad statements in it should be supported by citations in the text below. The current lead is neither a summary of the article (rather an introduction), and makes many assertions which are uncited below. DuncanHill (talk) 22:59, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Lead Section
Not sure of the etiquette of reversions. May I recommend reverting the "Revision as of 13:38, 14 February 2021, 2.28.34.244", line 6 "operation Jimno" back to "Revision as of 03:08, 5 January 2021, Monkbot". The Operation was Pied Piper and not Jimno, and the cow story, whilst amusing, does not belong in the lead section. Davidc (talk) 23:06, 21 February 2021 (UTC)