Code Talkers

“Code talkers” are individuals tasked by the U.S. military to use their traditional languages as codes to disguise military radio and written transmissions. With the exception of Basque individuals, code talkers were frequently of American Indian descent. This unique application of traditional language represented a continuation of enduring warrior traditions in modern warfare. The United States owed much of its success in World War I, World War II, and later conflicts to the strength of codes based on indigenous languages and to the individuals who valiantly served in code talker capacities.

American Indians have a long, proud history of military service in the United States. This is commonly attributed to the warrior traditions of many indigenous cultures. While the warrior role involves much more than being a combatant, colonization processes (e.g., land rights disputes, massacres, economic woes, and intercultural friction) made war endeavors more frequent and intense. Warriors who previously provided for and protected villages and clans from traditional rivals now found themselves locked in perilous and asymmetrical battles with the skirmishers, infantry, cavalry, and artillery of a fledgling state. Until the 1900s, American Indian nations fought against or alongside the United States, depending on each individual nation's alliances. When the United States joined the Allies during World War I, thousands of American Indians, who had not yet been granted citizenship, volunteered for service abroad.

World War I

It was World War I that saw the inception of code talker initiatives. All the Allies’ codes to date were repeatedly cracked, and their forces were desperate for a more effective means of shielding strategic intelligence. As legend has it, an American officer overheard two Choctaw soldiers speaking to each other. This eventually prompted an evaluation of the integrity of codes based on Native languages in the war zone.

World War I code talking programs included members of several tribal nations, including Choctaw, Comanche, Seminole, Meskwaki, Cherokee, Osage, Dakota, and Lakota. Two types of code languages were developed: Type I and Type II. Type I code talking consists of an encoded language based upon a parent language (e.g., wakaree'e, Comanche for turtle, was code for tank). Type II involved the use of noncoded parent languages (i.e., direct translations of terms). These codes were incredibly successful and never broken. The valiant and crucial efforts of code talkers and multiple non–code talking American Indian enlistees contributed to the U.S. government's recognizing all American Indians as citizens in 1920.

Transcript

• Native American languages as a weapon? The idea was born during the First World War in the trenches of France. The U.S. Army began using Cherokee soldiers to communicate strategic information in a code that was unbreakable to the Germans.
• They might refer to a tank as a turtle or an airplane as an eagle or some other flying animal. And so there was a code within the language, and so it was that much more difficult to break the codes.
• The moment of glory for the so-called ‘code talkers’ came during the Second World War. Comanche in the European theater and Navajo in the Pacific. The Japanese never managed to crack it. Keith Little was one of almost 400 Navajos who worked as code talkers, and at Iwo Jima, he learned to use his native language and some creativity to confuse the enemy.
• – thinks he didn't get it, one word, and it was to get it down right. So he calls the senator back and say read the word after this. Not all the message; just one.
• Recognition of the code talkers was long overdue when in 2001, George W. Bush finally acknowledged their essential role. And above all, it was Hollywood that brought their story to light in the 2002 film, ‘Windtalkers’. Only a handful of these heroes are still alive today.

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