The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II • Hacker News Board

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#41

Post by qbonnard » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #5

Carter? "Yes sir?" What is it, Carter? "An ocarina, sir" Bring it up here! I've had a really nice, small "English four-hole" unglazed terracotta pendant ocarina since I was a kid. They are actually really fun to play and very visceral, in a sense; the way you can get a chromatic scale from only four hole sizes combinatorially is intellectually satisfying and weirdly easy to learn. It came with some sheet music that s…

I understand the intellectual satisfaction you're talking about. Now I'm wondering if we can push the minimalism to using these four holes with only two fingers. It seems doable from the diagram you link, using link fingers, and assuming half holes can be covered from the left side, and two holes can be covered with one finger at the same time. Would that work, or does the physicality of the instrument prevent that ?

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#42

Post by WJW » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

esafak wrote: post #35

crote wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.

What if people do but not in enough numbers? Farewell, sweet country!

If the country doesn't have enough people to defend it, perhaps it's good and just that some other community gets to control the territory? A country isn't really anything except for its people, after all.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#43

Post by mitthrowaway2 » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #23

TomK32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In peacetimes, yes, but if it's defensive war I don't see many arguments against a draft, it can't be generalized though.

If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.

Seems like there's a clear free-rider problem, the volunteers make the sacrifice and the non-volunteers reap the benefits.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#44

Post by zulux » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

pasc1878 wrote: post #36

jeffbee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite WW2 morale detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge

The British did better Put beer into drop tanks on Spitfires https://planehistoria.com/flying-pubs-spitfires-flew-beer-to...

That still happens in America. Hike to a remote place, and get your friend to drop a keg in a mountain lake from his plane.

"Alpine Lake Keg Drop".

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#45

Post by zulux » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

stevage wrote: post #21

Interesting that they don't seem to have had much cultural impact. I've never heard of these, never seen them in war films. You don't hear songs wistfully using a wartime ocarina or referring to them.

Does this explain why all the kids in the States got recorders after the war? It's still a thing in 4th grade for most kids in public school.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#46

Post by derektank » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #29

derektank wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something is forced, doesn’t make it slavery. I’m forced to pay taxes; that doesn’t make me a slave. Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée. I think the primary objection in this thread is to the use of the word slavery, which is simply not the same thing.

> Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée. Many historians now concede that there is little to no meaningful difference between various forms of feudal servitude and slavery. Slaves in the later Roman Empire also had certain rights, including the right to buy their own freedom in many cases. That doesn’t mean they weren’t slaves.

I will have to disagree with these historians. There is a fundamental difference between having legal personhood and being chattel. To be bound is not the same thing as to be owned.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#47

Post by danaris » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

dmbrThnYou wrote: post #27

danaris wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um...what? Desertion has, historically, been a capital crime. Trying to paint conscription as not being a kind of captivity because "you're not legally obligated to stay in your country" is at best wildly disingenuous, and at worst just flat-out wrong. I think you might need to take quite a bit more time to consider this issue, lest you prove your username much truer than you probably want.

You can absolutely emigrate prior to the conscription coming to fruition. It has to be permanent, or it's draft evasion, but it is perfectly legal. Sorry for the edits confusing things. I can see earlier how you thought I meant desertion as opposed to emigration.

Most people do not have the ability to emigrate. Hell, a great many people barely have the economic ability to move across their own state, but emigration requires that the country you're trying to move to is willing to let you live and work there permanently. I don't know if you're familiar with the difficulties involved in this, but I can assure you they are significant.

Dismissing the loss of freedom inherent in conscription by saying you can avoid it by abandoning your entire life, leaving your country, your job, probably your family behind...even if you do have both the money and a legal path to immigrate somewhere else, which, again, most people do not, that's hardly a reasonable alternative.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#48

Post by dofm » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

qbonnard wrote: post #41

dofm wrote: post #5

Carter? "Yes sir?" What is it, Carter? "An ocarina, sir" Bring it up here! I've had a really nice, small "English four-hole" unglazed terracotta pendant ocarina since I was a kid. They are actually really fun to play and very visceral, in a sense; the way you can get a chromatic scale from only four hole sizes combinatorially is intellectually satisfying and weirdly easy to learn. It came with some sheet music that s…

I understand the intellectual satisfaction you're talking about. Now I'm wondering if we can push the minimalism to using these four holes with only two fingers. It seems doable from the diagram you link, using link fingers, and assuming half holes can be covered from the left side, and two holes can be covered with one finger at the same time. Would that work, or does the physicality of the instrument prevent that ?

From memory — can't find the thing right now! — this would be a little difficult on the one I had because of its shape.

Also because — not sure how to explain it — but in my experience the holes on a four hole ocarina are also sort of finger grips, in a way. That is to say, you support the ocarina against your lips with at least one finger below it and two thumbs behind it, but part of your grip on the instrument is gently transferring from fingertip to fingertip as you play, a bit like a recorder or the pipe of bagpipes. The "open" low note has the loosest grip, and you might even subconsciously tilt your head back slightly to allow the weight of the ocarina to shift more to your thumbs.

It might be possible to design, effectively, a one-handed playable instrument that works the way you are talking about, but I think it would be quite uncomfortable.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#49

Post by jltsiren » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #18

multjoy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t slavery as they were paid and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities. Conscription is as old as society itself.

I mean, to be fair, so is slavery. I think it's important to acknowledge that conscription is a violation of human rights, and absolutely a violation of human autonomy and dignity. The reason it exists is because historically, the primary source of military power has been the number of armed humans you can put on the battlefield. That's much less true now, but even in WWII the technology wasn't yet up to that point.…

Conscription for wars fought for political purposes is qualitatively different from conscription to defend your country. (But this is a continuum rather than two disjoint categories.) The former happens when the ambitions of the leaders exceed the capabilities of the state. The latter is based on the view that a country is a collective of its citizens, and the citizens are therefore personally responsible for defending it.

Re: The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II

#50

Post by p-e-w » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

derektank wrote: post #46

p-e-w wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée. Many historians now concede that there is little to no meaningful difference between various forms of feudal servitude and slavery. Slaves in the later Roman Empire also had certain rights, including the right to buy their own freedom in many cases. That doesn’t mean they weren’t slaves.

I will have to disagree with these historians. There is a fundamental difference between having legal personhood and being chattel. To be bound is not the same thing as to be owned.

Many, if not most, historical institutions that are universally recognized as slavery didn’t permit slave owners to dispose of their slaves like arbitrary property they owned. If that’s the definition of slavery, it’s an unusually restrictive one.