This subject is something that’s always been of interest to me and I’ve intended to write about it for a long time. The subject is American Indian Code Talkers. How important were they to all of us? They were extremely instrumental in helping the U.S. win World War II.
I grew up in Oklahoma and Native Americans from Oklahoma played a major role in the code talker initiative and later in life I became involved with the encryption of communications — so the subject of “codes” seems to have always been of interest to me. Anyhow, you get the point… this is a subject that I find fascinating, so here we go.
What is a code talker? That’s the name given to American Indians who used their tribal language to send secret communications on the battlefield.
The idea of using American Indians who were fluent in both their traditional tribal language and in English to send secret messages in battle was first put to the test in World War I. There were a number of Native communication experts and messengers used in that war — probably the most famous was the Choctaw Telephone Squad. But it wasn’t until World War II that the US military developed a policy to specifically recruit and train American Indians to become code talkers.
When the term “code talker” is used, most people think of the Navajo code talkers who used their traditional language to transmit secret messages in the Pacific theater during World War II. Many/most know about code talkers because of the movie, “Wind Talkers.”
The “fact of” coded talkers was declassified in 1968.
Even though the Navajo Code Talkers have gotten the most publicity, probably because of the movie, there were at least 14 other Native American nations that provided code talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war.
Being from Oklahoma, I’m most familiar with tribes from Oklahoma and more familiar with their contribution. The first tribe to provide code talkers to the US military was the Choctaws — from Oklahoma — during World War I. But in World War II, 17 men formed the Comanche Code Talkers and became the first to be tasked with relaying messages in their native language. Since Comanche wasn’t a recorded or written language, it was the ideal “secret” language.
Historically, Native Americans have volunteered for military service at nearly twice the rate of the American population. Tribal warrior traditions were often a young Indian man’s way of proving himself, and since government run military schools operated with the strict discipline used in the military, the transition to army life wasn’t that hard for the Comanches. According to one story I read, the Code Talkers surprised their drill sergeant by how much they already knew, and their basic training was cut short because of it.
In addition to the language itself being a “code” to the Germans, the Comanches developed their own lingo of 250 code words to describe military and geographical terms for which there was no native Comanche word. For example, bombers were “pregnant birds” and bombs were “baby birds.” Tanks were “turtles,” and Adolph Hitler was “crazy white man.” Even other Comanches didn’t understand what these 250 words meant.
Of the 17 original Comanches, only 13 actually saw combat. They trained as a group, but three were discharged after training and one was transferred to I-Corps because of his skill in cryptography. The 13 landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. An interesting tidbit about the landing is that Code Talker Larry Saupitty was also the personal orderly, driver and radio operator to the division commanding general, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. He sent the first Comanche language message when they landed 2,000 yards from their target. He spoke over the radio: “We made a good landing, we landed at the wrong place.”
The Comanche Homecoming was first held in July of 1946 in Walters, Oklahoma to welcome home all the World War II tribal veterans. In September, 1992, the first Comanche Nation Fair was held at Fort Sill’s Eagle Park where the surviving Code Talkers were honored. The tribe also dedicated the Army’s Comanche helicopter.
Before going overseas many of the Code Talkers participated in a peyote ceremony in the Native American Church and were given medicine bags containing a blessed peyote button to protect them. [peyote is a small, soft, blue-green, spineless cactus, native to Mexico and the Southern US – often used in preparing hallucinogenic drugs.] During difficult times,, some of them consumed the peyote sacrament to help them through it — one of the code talkers said that it must have worked, for all of us came back.
The irony of being asked to use their Native languages to fight on behalf of America wasn’t lost on the code talkers, many of whom had been forced to attend government or religious-run schools that tried to assimilate Native peoples and would punish students for speaking in their traditional language.
I think that this is such a cool chapter in out history… it’s kind of sad that today advances in communications encryption technology has ended the need for code talking.
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