Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Great Evacuation of 1939 at the beginning of WWII. Photo courtesy of Corbis Stock Photography.

Two thousand people have gathered today (1 September 2009) at St Paul’s Cathedral in London to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of the World War II Great Evacuation of 1939.

More than three million children were evacuated ahead of the Second World War, out of London and all the big cities to safer refuge in England’s countryside.

Families all over the country were split up as children were given their rations and marched “crocodile-style” to railway stations to get trains to safety.

The anniversary will be marked with a fly-past by a Lancaster bomber, followed by a service in St Paul’s organised by the Evacuees Reunion Association (ERA).

The ERA is a non-profit making registered charity and has its origin in the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995 when a few evacuees, wearing what has become their distinctive emblem, a tied-on luggage label, took part in the ‘Great Parade’ in London.

The first wave of evacuations, known as Operation Pied Piper, involved 1.5 million people and took place over four days from 1 September 1939, the day the war started.

Some 3.5 million people in total, mainly children, were removed from cities and towns to safer areas from 1939 to 1945.

It was also announced last week that records of more than 100,000 British prisoners of war captured during World War II are being published online at www.ancestry.co.uk.

Accessible for a fee, the records were compiled by the German military authorities under the 1929 Geneva Convention, and contain details of British and Commonwealth personnel held in Germany, Austria and Poland in WWII.

The website is also publishing the UK Army Roll of Honour for 1939 to 1945, which includes the records of all British Army personnel killed in action during World War II, including those who died of natural causes, wounds and diseases.