ILIE2017-001 - ethnographic attestation
Romanian Army veterans, Bucesti village, behind the Siret line
Romania - Siret front, Galati county - Eastern Europe
Play / practical
In July 1917, in the village of Bucesti just behind the Siret line, a few of the old madcaps of the Romanian Army invented a toy: a shingle slat tied to a string. Whirled in the air it gave the exact shriek of a shell in flight — and the recruits, the memoir says, ran like mice for the dugouts. For one summer of the war the world's oldest whirring instrument served as the front's cruellest practical joke.
Cand o invarteau in aer, sindrila scotea un zgomot ca de proiectil... Recrutii fugeau ca soarecii la adaposturi.
When they whirled it in the air, the shingle made a noise like a projectile... The recruits ran like mice for the shelters.
Soldier's memoir, in Ilie, Muzeul National XXIX (2017), p. 132
- Object
- A shingle slat tied to a single string, improvised in camp; whirled in the air it shrieked like a shell in flight.
- Function
- Soldiers' improvised toy and prank, July 1917: old hands whirled the shingle so its projectile-whistle sent the recruits diving for the dugouts.
- Map confidence
- medium - Bucesti village (Ivesti commune, Galati), immediately behind the 1917 Siret line as the memoir states.
- Source location
- Ilie 2017, p. 132