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The enemy
There
10. But events may not develop with the mathematical precision which the "zero minus" formula requires, may develop his preparations in a leisurely fashion. may be indications that, while he is going ahead with his preparations, he is not likely to strike immediately they are completed. Also various extraneous considerations may enter, which lead to a deferment of the decision to evacuate half a million people. Or all estimates may be falsified and the enemy be ready to strike long before this was expected. Thes possibilities cannot be ignored, and it would seem foolish not to keep in being a scheme for the compulsory evacuation of children, to be followed (i? time. permits) by the evacuation of the remainier of the ovulation,
11. Nor must it be forgotten that, in the announcements issued in June last, when the scheme for children was published, the Government must be regarded as having pledged itself to ensure that the children would be removed from the thirty-one towns,
Four Inland Towns.
12.
In regard to the proposal for the prior evacuation of Ipswich, Colchester, Canterbury and Ashford, this, as will be observed from para, 2, does not conform to the present railway schedules. If the separate evacuation of these towns, before the groups of which they form a part, is regarded as a military necessity then fresh railway schedules and a re- allocation of reception areas will have to be undertaken.
13. The following considerations should, however, be borne in mind:-
(1) If the whole scheme is to be completed several days
before zero, and if it is unlikely that communications would be badly upset by enemy
bombing until a few days before the invasion occurs, then the main case for the prior evacuation of the communications centres disappears,
(2) The four towns are very near the coast.
It would
be difficult to evacuate Ipswich and Colchester, for example, without upsetting the population of Harwich and lacton, particularly if children were being sent sw.v from the inland towns while those on the coash were left behind, They might travel to join the Ipswich trains, thereby causing confusion, of begin to trek out of the towns and cause an unmanageable problem.
(3) Any plans for the advance evacuation of the four
inland tone alone, would make it impossible to evacuate the children from the coastal towns in the same groups until the evacuation of the inland towns was complete, because the same lines and the same rolling stock would be involved,
(4) If the evacuation of the coast towns is to follow
immediately after the four inland towns, there is no reason why the whole scheme for the groups concerned should not be put into operation at the same time,
For these reasons, it would be desirable to retain the present grouping by which Ipswich and Colchester are evacuated with Harwich, Clacton and certain other adjacent Last Anglian towns and similarly that the Kent coastal towns should go out with Canterbury and Ashford,
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