The Navajo Code Talkers Program was established in September 1942 as the result of a recommendation made the previous February by Mr. Philip Johnston to Major General Clayton P. Vogel, USMC., Commanding General, Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, headquartered at Camp Elliott, California.

        Mr. Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajo tribe, was fluent in the language, having lived among the Navajos for 24 years. He believed that use by the Marine Corps of Navajo as a code language in voice (radio and wire) transmission could guarantee communications security.

        Mr. Johnston's rationale for this belief was that Navajo is an unwritten language and completely unintelligible to anyone except another Navajo, and that it is a rich fluent language for which code words, in Navajo, could be devised for specialized military terms, such as the Navajo word for "turtle" representing a tank.

        With cooperation of four Navajos residing in the Los Angeles area, and another who was already on active Naval service in San Diego, Mr. Johnston presented a demonstration of his theory to General Vogel and his staff at Camp Elliott on February 25, 1942. Marine staff officers composed simulated field combat messages, which were handed to a Navajo, who then translated it into tribal dialect and transmitted it to another Navajo on the other side of the line. The second Indian then translated back in perfect English in the same form which had been provided originally. The demonstration proved entirely successful and as a result, General Vogel recommended the recruitment into the Marine Corps of at least 200 Navajos for the code talker program. As a footnote, tests in the Pacific under combat conditions proved that classified messages could be translated into Navajo, transmitted, received and translated back into English quicker than messages which were encoded, transmitted and decoded employing conventional cryptographic facilities and techniques.

        With the Commandant's approval, recruitment began in May 1942. Each Navajo underwent basic boot camp training at San Diego, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot before assignment to the Field Signal Battalion for training at Camp Pendleton. It should be noted that at the outset, the entire Navajo code talker project was highly classified and there is no indication that any message traffic in Navajo language -- while undoubtedly intercepted -- was ever deciphered.

        Initially, the course at Camp Pendleton consisted of training in basic communications procedures and equipment. At the same time 29 Navajos comprising the first group recruited devised Navajo words for military terms which were not part of their language. Alternate terms were provided in the code for letters frequently repeated in the English language. To compound the difficulty of the program, all code talkers had to memorize both the primary and alternate code terms, for while much of the basic material was printed for use in training, the utmost observance of security precautions curtailed the use of printed material in a combat situation.

        Once the code talkers completed training in the States, they were sent to the Pacific for assignment to the Marine combat divisions. In May 1943, in response to a request for a report on the subject, the various division commanders reported to the Commandant that excellent results had been achieved to date in the the employment of Navajo code talkers in training and combat situations, and they had performed in a highly commendable fashion. This high degree of praise concerning the Navajos' performance prevailed throughout the war and from commanders at all levels.

        Although recruitment of the Navajos was comparatively slow at the time the program was first established, Marine recruiting teams were sent to the Navajo territory and a central recruiting office was set up at Fort Wingate. By August 1943 a total of 191 Navajos had joined the Marine Corps for this specific program. Estimates have placed the total number of Navajos in the code talker program variously between 375 and 420 individuals. It is known that many more Navajos volunteered to become code talkers than could be accepted; however, an undetermined number of other Navajos served as Marines, in the war, but not as code talkers.

        In recognition of their dedicated service to America during World War II, the Navajo code talkers were awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the President of the United States in December 1981. Their unique achievements constitute a proud chapter in the history of the United States Marine Corps. Their patriotism, resourcefulness, and courage also have earned them the gratitude of all Americans.

Navajo Code Talkers, America's Secret Weapon

How the Navajo and Choctaw Languages Scrambled Secret Military Communications in WWII

By: John Shepler

Private First Class Mitchell Bobb had the weight of the battalion on his shoulders that day. The message he spoke into the field telephone was almost certain to be intercepted by German troops who had tapped their lines and knew every move of the American forces whom they surrounded. To Ben Carterby, stationed at headquarters, Bobb spoke the message intended for the Battalion Commander, certain that it would remain a secret. He was right. To the listening Germans it sounded like someone had scrambled the transmission. But that was impossible. Voice scrambling technology wouldn't be available for decades. How were they doing it?

This secret of Carterby and Bobb turned the tide of the battle within 24 hours after they implemented their "scrambled" voice messages. Within 72 hours the Germans were in retreat, and the Allies had taken the offensive. The amazing invention they deployed that day had no new technology at all. The men were simply speaking in their native Choctaw language. The Choctaw Code Talkers saved their battalion and invented secure communications in the closing days of World War I. It was to remain their secret, however, as the Armistice was signed and the Chocktaw men returned to their reservations.

Twenty five years later, America was embroiled in another World War. Again, it was a war with few secrets. Allied Intelligence had broken the German and Japanese communications codes. But the Japanese had also broken every code the Americans thought up. Many of the top Japanese code breakers had been educated in the United States and were savvy even to local references and slang that the American forces tried to use to disguise their intentions. Perhaps the Choctaw Code Talkers might have had some success again, but there had only been eight of them in that test of World War I and they had long since been forgotten...or had they?

Seventeen Comanches were assigned to the Comanche Signal Corps of the Army and, like the Chocktaws before them, passed messages among themselves that could not be understood by the Germans. Little did the Germans listening-in realize that the words posah-tai-vo meant crazy white man, and were used to identify none other than Adolph Hitler.

The most ambitious effort to employ native languages as secret codes was championed by Philip Johnston. Johnston was a World War I veteran who had come by covered wagon to settle on Navajo land in northern Arizona with his missionary family. By age 9, he had gained such proficiency in Navajo language that he acted as interpreter between two Navajo leaders and President Theodore Roosevelt when they met in 1901. Johnston had heard of the Choctaw Code Talkers, and he was convinced that the Navajo language would also be nearly impossible for an enemy to understand. After all, he was one of perhaps 30 non-natives who understood the complex and subtle Navajo expressions. Now, all he needed to do was convince the skeptical military that he had the answer to their security problems.

Johnston did convince Lt. Col. James E. Jones, a Marine signal officer, to let him put on a demonstration at Camp Elliott, near San Diego, in February of 1942. Navajo volunteers translated typical military messages from English to Navajo, and sent the messages to another room where other Navajos translated them back to English within 20 seconds. Using coding machines to convey the same messages took 30 minutes. The Marines agreed to enlist Johnston and 30 Navajos to try their system in actual combat...but it had to be foolproof. Allied forces in the Pacific would be staking their lives on the security of the orders sent via the Code Talkers.

Carl Gorman was one of the Navajos sent to Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942. As a young boy attending school at the Rehoboth Mission in Chinle, Arizona, he had been locked in chains in the school basement for refusing to speak English instead of Navajo. With Japanese forces sweeping over Guadalcanal and listening to every Marine radio frequency, Gorman and his friends William Yazzie, Jack Nez and Oscar Ilthma called in artillery fire and provided status reports in what again sounded like gibberish to the enemy.

The Japanese cracked every code that the Army and Navy came up with , but not the Navajo code. Navajo is a spoken language handed down orally from generation to generation. The Code Talkers created a system of native words to represent characters of the English alphabet, so that they could spell out English words that had no Navajo equivalent. They also assigned their own expressions, like iron-fish to mean submarine, for over 400 important military terms. Each Code Talker memorized these special words. There were no written materials that could be captured.

Joe Kieyoomia, a Navajo soldier who was not trained as a Code Talker, was captured and survived the Bataan Death March, only to be tortured into trying to decode intercepted Marine communications. Left standing naked in the snow, feet frozen to the parade ground, he couldn't confess to what he didn't understand. The secret code made no sense, even to another Navajo.

It was said by high military officers that the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima without the Navajo Code Talkers, and World War II might have had a different outcome without their contribution. The 400 Navajos who were recruited and served as Code Talkers came home from the war and went through special native ceremonies called the "Enemy Way" to exorcise them of the painful memories of hand to hand combat and ghosts of the dead. Incredibly, one of America's most valuable secret weapons had been developed thousands of years before there even was a United States. It was the power of the Native American Language.

MORE CODE TALKERS.

Chocktaw Indians

The first code talkers in the U.S. Armed forces!

From Bishinik, The Official Publication of the Choctaw Nation, August 1986

In the closing days of World War I, eight Choctaws were instrumental in helping the American Expeditionary Force to win several key battles in the Mousse-Argonne campaign, which proved to be the final big German push of that war, as "code talkers."

Of the eight Choctaws involved, one was from Bryan County, one from Choctaw County and six from McCurtain County. They included:

Solomon Lewis, Bennington

Mitchell Bobb, Smithville

Ben Carterby (Bismark), Wright City

Robert Taylor, Bokchito or Boswell

Jeff Nelson, Kullitukle

Pete Maytubby, Broken Bow

James Edwards, Ida (now Battiest)

Calvin Wilson, Goodwater

All were serving in the same battalion, which was practically surrounded by the Germans. And to make matters worse, it was known that the Germans had "broken" the Americans' radio codes and had tapped the telephone lines. They were also capturing about one "messenger" out of four who served as runners between the various companies on the battle line.

Captain Lawrence, commander of one of the companies, was strolling through the company area when he happened to overhear Solomon Lewis and Mitchell Bobb conversing in their native Choctaw language. After listening for a few moments, he called Lewis aside. "Corporal," he asked," how many of you Choctaw boys do we have in this battalion?"

After a conference with Bobb, Lewis told the Captain, "We have eight men who speak fluent Choctaw in the battalion, sir."

"Are there any of them over in headquarters company?" asked the captain.

"I think that Carterby and Maytubby are over there," Lewis replied.

"You fellows wait right here," said the captain. He got onto the telephone and discovered that, indeed, Ben Carterby and Pete Maytubby were attached to Headquarters Company.

"Get them and have them stand by," Captain Lawrence told his commanding officer. "I've got an idea that might get the Heinies off our backs."

Calling Lewis and Bobb, the captain told them, "Look, I'm going to give you a message to call in to headquarters. I want you to give them a message in your language. There will be somebody there who can understand it."

The message was worded and Private First Class Mitchell Bobb used the field phone to deliver the first Choctaw code message to Choctaw Ben Carterby, who then transposed it back into English for the Battalion Commander.

Within a matter of hours, the eight men able to speak Choctaw had been shifted until there was at least one in each field company headquarters. Not only were they handling field telephone calls, they were translating radio messages into the Choctaw and writing field orders to be carried by "runners" between the various companies.

The German code experts were "flipping their wigs" trying to break the new American code.

Within 24 hours after the Choctaw language was pressed into service, the tide of the battle had turned, and in less than 72 hours the Germans were retreating and the Allies were on full attack.

Since this occurrence was so near the end of the war, the Choctaw Code Talkers were apparently used in only this one campaign. They were praised by the company commanders and battalion commander, who told the eight Choctaws that he was "putting them in for medals." (The medals were never received.)

Most of the information in this report was told to Len Green in 1979 by Solomon Lewis. He said at that time he was the only Choctaw Code Talker still living.

Supplied by Bob Bradshaw

The Comanche Code Talkers were an elite group of young men who were fluent in the Comanche language and used that knowledge, along with the training they were given by the United States Army, to send critical messages that confused the enemy during World War II.  Seventeen young men were trained in communications, but only fourteen were deployed to the European theater. 

In 1989 the French Government honored the survivors of the group for their important contribution with the “Chevalier de L’Order National du Merite.”  The United States government has not offered any special recognition for the group.  We, as Comanche people, honor them always.

For more information on the Comanche Code Talkers, contact the Research Room of the Lawton Public Library, 104 S.W. 4^th Street, Lawton OK 73501 (580-581-3450, ext. #6). There are file folders with newspaper clippings that can be photo-copied for a small fee.

In 1991 and 1992 the Southwestern Oklahoma Historical Society published an interview with Roderick “Dick” Red Elk in their publication Prairie Lore.  Published in two parts, you may order copies of the Fall 1991 and Spring 1992 issues for $6.00 each by sending a check to S.W.O.H.S., P.O. Box 3693, Lawton OK 73502.

Hidden Path Productions released a 42-minute video titled “The Last Comanche Code Talker – Recollections of Charles Chibitty.”  It is a powerful and moving video that chronicles the lives of these young Comanche men.  It is available through the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton, 580-581-3460.