Native Americans were already serving as messengers and runners between units. A captured German officer confirmed they were "completely confused by the Indian language and gained no benefit whatsoever" from their wiretaps. The movement was successful: "The enemy's complete surprise is evidence that he could not decipher the messages", Bloor observed. The first combat test took place on October 26, 1918, when Colonel Bloor ordered a "delicate" withdrawal of two companies of the 2nd Battalion, from Chufilly to Chardeny. With the active cooperation of his Choctaw soldiers, Colonel Bloor tested and deployed a code, using the Choctaw language in place of regular military code. Besides, many Native American languages have never been written down. He also realized that if he could not understand them, the same would be true for Germans, no matter how good their English skills. Overhearing two Choctaw Indians speaking with each another, he realized he could not understand them. An American officer, Colonel Alfred Wainwright Bloor, noticed a number of American Indians serving with him in the 142nd Infantry in France. The German forces proved not only to speak excellent English but also to have intercepted and broken American military codes. Origin Ĭode talking, the practice of using Native American languages for use as military code by American armed forces, got its start during World War I. They were conferred the Texas Medal of Valor in 2007. The government of the Choctaw Nation maintains that the men were the first American native code talkers ever to serve in the US military. The Choctaw code talkers were a group of Choctaw Indians from Oklahoma who pioneered the use of Native American languages as military code during World War I. Readers will find the story of the Comanche Code Talkers compelling, humorous, thought-provoking, and inspiring.Native American as code in World War I Choctaws in training in World War I for coded radio and telephone transmissions. “Of all the books on Native American service in the U.S. Meadows sets this history in a larger discussion of the development of Native American code talking in World Wars I and II, identifying two distinct forms of Native American code talking, examining the attitudes of the American military toward Native American code talkers, and assessing the complex cultural factors that led Comanche and other Native Americans to serve their country in this way. He also provides the first comparison of Native American code talking programs, comparing the Comanche Code Talkers with their better-known Navajo counterparts in the Pacific and with other Native Americans who used their languages, coded or not, for secret communication. Meadows follows the group from their recruitment and training to their active duty in World War II and on through their postwar lives up to the present. Drawing on interviews with all surviving members of the unit, their original training officer, and fellow soldiers, as well as military records and news accounts, William C. This book tells the full story of the Comanche Code Talkers for the first time. For the rest of World War II, the Comanche Code Talkers played a vital role in transmitting orders and messages in a code that was never broken by the Germans. Under German fire they laid communications lines and began sending messages in a form never before heard in Europe?coded Comanche. The true story of the US Army’s Comanche Code Talkers, from their recruitment and training to active duty in World War II and postwar life.Īmong the allied troops that came ashore in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, were thirteen Comanches in the 4th Infantry Division, 4th Signal Company.
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