Phylo my boy ...
Remind me again exactly who it is keeps complaining about
my condecension?
1. There weren’t that many people left to flee. Some two-thirds or more of the population of Dover, Folkestone, Deal, Eastbourne and other coastal towns had already left by mid-September. Those remaining - after repeated invitations from the authorities to leave if their presence was not needed - were apparently prepared to stick it out.
1/ As you've already been shown - this was not the case, there were many coastal towns with less than or just around half their normal populations still there; two thirds had not flown the coop from the majority of coastal towns.
2/ You're making yet another assumption that "they were prepared to stick it out". This is not the case; as shown previously, the government had made preparations for non-combatants' evacuation which would have been actioned in the immediate lead-up to or in the event of an invasion. Getting on a government-provided and timetabled train and heading north away from the coast is
not sticking it out.
2. Even if they were not, reports about what happened in Belgium and France, not to mention their own experiences of recent weeks, would have made it clear to them that going on the road once the shooting started was much more dangerous than staying in their Anderson Shelter or (suitably reinforced) cellar.
It might have made it clear to the Army...who were the ones wanted the coastal strip evacuated early...but panicking civilians don't tend to make that sort of reasoned decision.
It is also not clear where these panicking refugees from coastal towns are supposed to flee to - anybody fleeing inland from Dover, for example, would be heading TOWARDS the (sounds of) fighting, which would not seem like a good idea either.
I don't know how you reckon THAT; anyone fleeing inland from Dover along the A2 or A255 or any of the minor roads heading in the same directions would be heading
away from the fighting west and north-west of Folkestone - which was the closest eventually that German plans had invasion forces landing on S-Day.
3. Whatever wild plans there may have been before, by August/September policy was clear and the government had ordered the population, repeatedly and unequivocally, to stay put in case of invasion
As has been shown - the "Stay Put" instruction was actually recalled and more toned-down instructions ordered.
and there were more than enough police, Home Guard and military on hand to enforce that order – and the road blocks were already in place for other reasons.
Except there weren't; as I've noted before, do you not think that in the event of an invasion, the Home Guard and Military would be busy
elsewhere?
The Chief Constable of Maidstone instructed his men as follows: “It is of paramount importance that when a crisis arises the public must remain where they are and any attempt at panic evacuation must be stopped, if necessary by force, regrettable though this course may be.”
Any point in remind you yet again (even in this thread) about the government provisions made for handling these non-existent refugees I.E. the marking out of roads/routes specifically for refugees' use on maps issued to the Army etc.? And that the Chief Constable of
Kent was involved in drawing up plans to deal with the expected flood of refugees; according to him, some places such as nodal points, which were going to be subject to all-round defence and in those cases all "useless mouths" - women and children and the aged-infirm -
would be compulsorily evacuated.
Frankly, it is absurd to suggest that at the same time town councils would be planning just such a panic evacuation, in open defiance of government orders. And there is no credible evidence that they did
On the contrary, there's clear evidence they did just that. And NOT in defiance of government orders, initially as their "local" part of the overall
government evacuation scheme prepared in early June.
4. A number of roads were designated one-way roads reserved for military traffic. We can safely assume that any civilian vehicles found going against that traffic would be pushed off the road immediately and the occupants would be lucky not to be shot as spies or Fifth Columnists.
You're determined to ignore the roads that were likewise marked out om maps
specifically for refugees, aren't you?
5. And on top of all that of course, by Sept. 1940 there were few civilians left who owned motor vehicles and had the necessary permits and petrol coupons to keep them running
You're assuming that
refugees were all be
in cars??? Weren't you just talking about the Belgium/France experience?
But we're getting a bit off topic, aren't we?
Once again, in yet another thread...
In any case, I have already explained in another thread that there would not have been many refugees "pouring out of the coastal towns of Kent and Sussex that autumn", for several good reasons.
...
you are the one who chose to take us there.
On the matter of armed police
controlling refugees...you appear to have missed the whole point of arming the police -
On the same day during a meeting of the War cabinet a throwaway remark by the Home Secretary on the role of armed police officers resulted in several months of serious discussion during which it was even suggested that if there was an invasion the British Police should become part of the armed forces of the Crown.
After seeing which way the Churchill wind was blowing, Anderson presented the War
Cabinet with proposals on police arming in the form of a seven-point memorandum at its
meeting on 24 May: ‘1. The police are a civilian force, normally unarmed, and only a
minority of the members of the regular and auxiliary police forces are at present trained in the
use of firearms. 2. Even in the existing situation the main body of the police must remain
available for the performance of normal police duties, for most of which the carrying of arms
is unnecessary and undesirable. There is, however, a large number of men - approximately
10,000 full-time policemen and many thousands of part-time Special Constables - now
employed in guarding vulnerable points against sabotage. 3. As regards the risk of enemy
landings by parachute, the functions of the police should in the main be confined to (a)
observing, and reporting to the military authorities, the presence of parachutists; and (b)
preventing attempts at sabotage or other acts of violence by isolated individuals and
overpowering and arresting the individuals where possible. 4. There are accordingly, certain
particular purposes for which it would be proper and desirable to take steps immediately to
arm the police, namely (a) Guarding vulnerable points against sabotage, as far as this is
undertaken by the police. (b) Protecting important police stations against attempts to seize
them by enemy raiding parties, whether parachutists or not. For this purpose selected
members of the staffs of the stations should be armed. (c) Armed motorised patrols employed
in parties of from two to four men, especially in rural districts and at the approaches to
important towns. (d) Armed Police posts should be established, where men can be spared, at
bridges or other key points with a view to controlling movements on the road, and holding up
individual parachutists attempting to reach their rallying point or to approach particular
objectives, e.g. for [the] purpose of sabotage’....
...Churchill accepted the compromise and the War Cabinet ‘approved the proposal of
the Home Secretary to take steps immediately to arm the Police - so far as the arms available
permitted - to enable them to carry out the functions referred to in paragraph 4 of his
Memorandum’.
Confidential Memorandum 25/40 on 29 May 1940 to accompany Game’s secret memorandum of the same date: ‘In view of the decision to arm Police whilst engaged on certain duties it is necessary to (a) revise the existing allocation of pistols and ammunition, and (b) issue rifles and ammunition to Divisions’. Additional pistols would be supplied and also made available for all officers of Inspector rank and above as a personal issue. Rifles were to be supplied on the basis of fifteen to each sub-division (five were for the protection of the station and ten were for use ‘should the need arise’ anywhere on the sub-division) and five to each sectional station. Each district garage (the Met was divided into four districts) was to have ten rifles, each Group Reserve Centre five rifles and each stables either ten or five depending on location. Each wireless car (up to four operated on each division as an immediate response to 999 calls – a system first introduced in June 1937), ‘Q’ car, CID car and Traffic Patrol car was to be equipped with two rifles so that the force could undertake ‘motorised patrols’.
When the Home Office circular explaining the War Cabinet decision arrived a few days later, Game decided to distribute an extract from it in the form of a secret memorandum (6/40) dated 29 May 1940. Interestingly, he had evidently made up his mind right from the start that he did not have men who could be ‘spared’ to cover all ‘bridges or other key points’ in London and so, using the loophole provided by Anderson, he omitted any reference to forces setting up "armed police points".
...it was for
internal security - guarding their own stations, security against saboteurs and scattered parachutists etc...and the idea of "
movement control" by armed police posts had been
abandoned by the end of May.
As we can see later in your article, Churchill had pushed the arming of the police because he saw THEM...along with the ARP wardens etc...providing a
two-tier system in the event of invasion, when there would be armed combatant branches of both assisting/being part of the Crown forces. And in fact...
Churchill was having none of it and said that ‘his view of the Cabinet decision ... was that we did not contemplate or countenance fighting by persons not in the armed forces, but that we did not forbid it. What he had had in mind was that the
police, and, he hoped, the A.R.P. services, could be divided into combatant and noncombatant branches, armed and unarmed; those armed would co-operate actively in fighting with the Home Guard and Regulars in their neighbourhood, and would withdraw with them if necessary; the unarmed would assist in the "stay put" policy for civilians’.
I.E. no armed police for handling refugees! In other words -
If any refugees had poured out of the coastal towns of kent and Sussex that autumn, they would not have found their way barred by some grim-faced gendarme flourishing a gun, but by a familiar, blue-helmeted figure armed with nothing more legal that persuasion, cajolery, and, as a last resort, a truncheon, reciting that often heard litany, "This way please."
The younger (fitter
) police officers were armed to "...
co-operate actively in fighting with the Home Guard and Regulars in their neighbourhood"...and/or "withdrawn"
....from invasion areas as necessary and under
military orders.
Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs....
Lord, please keep Kevin Bacon alive...