Evacuating Britain in WW2

[Domoviye]

Does anyone have any good estimates on how many people could be realistically evacuated from Britain in the event of Nazi Germany invading Britain?
For the sake of arguement lets say the invasion comes from a German Victory in the Battle of Britain, with the British Airforce destroyed due to pilot attrition, thus allowing Germany to bomb British defences into rubble.

 

[Tyr]

Given that Sealion is also possible in this scenario...50 million or so.

 

[Dave Howery]

would ordinary people have been evacuated, or just the government, the navy, and as many troops and military supplies as possible?

 

[Domoviye]

Given that Sealion is also possible in this scenario...50 million or so.

Fair enough.
Although in the scenerio I mentioned, it could also be caused by enough people demanding surrender, and a takeover by fascist leaning officials.

would ordinary people have been evacuated, or just the government, the navy, and as many troops and military supplies as possible?

THats what I'm really curious about as well.

 

[machine3589]

Let me guess..... resettling to Canada? And developing a nuke on the way there, right?

 

[Domoviye]

Hey Machine that was simple patriotic wankery. This is a more serious discussion.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Using the secret plans to build vast ice-ships out of pykrete the entire population is evacuated, along with domestic pets, farm animals, key national monuments, every book and painting in the UK and the entire national industry, much of which is able to function at sea.

The real surprise is when several of the ice-ships break off from the armada and do a vast loop up to the Arctic Circle before coming back down, landing on the German coast, destroying Bremen and Hamburg and all points in between, and the entire British Army AND Home Guard suddenly appear in the heart of Germany while the German Army is elsewhere. By the time Wehrmacht can redeploy...

 

[Tom Veil]

Why would Britain be evacuated? No other nations attempted to evacuate when the Germans invaded. Perhaps London and the South might be evacuated, but that would be for the purpose of continuing the fight, not for handing Hitler prime Lebensraum for free.

 

[BlackWave]

Evacuating a country like Britain, even nowadays, is next to impossible. It's just not practical. Besides, where would they go? Ireland, where there's no housing? Iceland, which has no space?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Evacuating a country like Britain, even nowadays, is next to impossible. It's just not practical. Besides, where would they go? Ireland, where there's no housing? Iceland, which has no space?

What would you evacuate them in? If Hitler magically produces a navy that can allow sea lion, and destroy the RN, how, and in what, is the evacuation happening?

 

[machine3589]

Evacuating a country like Britain, even nowadays, is next to impossible. It's just not practical. Besides, where would they go? Ireland, where there's no housing? Iceland, which has no space?

Canada.

 

[BlackWave]

Canada.

And the housing, farming, food, shelter, electricity, and gas, and whatnot will just magically appear out of thin air, even if we assume that all the tens of millions of Brits somehow succeed in pulling off this senseless exodus? Oh yes, canucks are magical. Of course it will.

 

[machine3589]

And the housing, farming, food, shelter, electricity, and gas, and whatnot will just magically appear out of thin air, even if we assume that all the tens of millions of Brits somehow succeed in pulling off this senseless exodus? Oh yes, canucks are magical. Of course it will.

You dont get it. It was a direct reference to a Nazi Victory TL.

 

[New Yorker]

Were there any plans to spirit the government and Royals out of the UK or maybe just out of London in case of invasion?

 

[glowjack]

Well, lets make this topic more possible/mundune then.

Suppose something contaminates the UK, perhaps nuclear arsenal meltdown , chem spill, natural disaster, the rage virus from 28 days later.

And there has to be an evacuation of civilians from the UK, how much is naval technology and numbers capable of evacuating the people .

How perpared is the world to take on massive amounts of refugees from a western nation?

 

[maverick]

Why evacaute? It's a nation of white christian people, and the closest thing to Hitler's idea of perfect Aryans this side of Scandinavians.

Jews and Communists, amongst others, shoud be the ones running away/evacuated.

 

[Iori]

Assuming that Britain actually is evacuated, say do to the aforementioned contamination thing, it'd probably take five years at the least to do.

A few things to add as well.

Not everyone is going to want to evacuate, not only do you have a good sized minority of people who actually side with Nazi Germany, their will be people who just won't leave for various reasons, so I'd say around 25-35% of the Population of Great Britain would choose not to leave.

Now, as for those who do leave, they are'nt all gonna go to the same place, so what you'd get is probably most of the evacuees eventually settling in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (to different degrees if Apartheid comes to be or not) and the United States.

You'd probably also see some people going to the Raj as well as some of the more developed colonies.

 

[Domoviye]

In regards to WW2, I had read in the past about some plans to evacuate children to other countries, in a style similar to evacuating them from the cities being blitzed. I was curious about it.
Also about evacuating the entire country, I know thats ASB. I'm wondering what the possible plans might have been for government officials, and any remaining soldiers. Poland had approximately 20,000 soldiers who escaped the Nazi army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Armed_Forces_in_the_West#cite_note-.C5.9APolWPWF-1.
I know Wiki isn't the best source, but I know that Poland did have a Free Army fighting alongside the Allies that had a large minority of experienced soldiers.
Also as Maverick said most people would not want to leave, but a fair number of the minorities would definitely consider it. Would a few thousand people doing everything they could to evacuate in wartime be unmanageable or easily accomplished. I'm guessing it would be relatively easy for the British to ship them out in ships heading back across the Atlantic for new supplies, but I'm not sure if the politicians would allow it.
So I probably worded it badly, but I'm not asking some newbie question about how many tens of thousands of citizens could be moved to the colonies. Simply if Britain did fall could some of the surviving army retreat to fight again, and could those people who needed and/or desired to flee do so easily?

 

[Grey Wolf]

The government, the armed forces, and key personnel would have been evacuated, apart from the stay-behind leadership which was to include RAB Butler.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Magniac]

Not everyone is going to want to evacuate, not only do you have a good sized minority of people who actually side with Nazi Germany

The government, the armed forces, and key personnel would have been evacuated, apart from the stay-behind leadership which was to include RAB Butler.

Actually, George Orwell once cryptically wrote about how the would-be quislings were all in the House of Lords.

I guess if that was the case they would coerce their rural tenants and village dwellers into staying, probably agin their will.