Choctaw code talkers

Choctaws in training in World War I for coded radio and telephone transmissions.

Choctaw code talkers were a group of Choctaw Indians from Oklahoma who pioneered the use of Native American languages as military code. Their exploits took place during the waning days of World War I. The government of the Choctaw Nation maintains these men comprised the first code talkers ever to serve in the U.S. military.^[1]

Origin of code talking

Code talking, the practice of using complex Native American languages for use as military code by American armed forces, got its start during World War I.

German forces proved to be masterful breakers of American military code, and were believed by U.S. army officers, generally accurately, to be intercepting and decoding every code in use.

An American officer, Colonel A.W. Bloor, noticed a number of American Indians serving with him in the 142nd Infantry in France. Overhearing two Choctaw Indians speaking with one another, he devised a plan. With the active cooperation of his Choctaw soldiers, he tested and deployed an innovative experiment, using the Choctaw language in place of regular military code.

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. The movement was successful.

"The enemy's complete surprise is evidence that he could not decipher the messages", Bloor observed. A captured German officer confirmed they were "completely confused by the Indian language and gained no benefit whatsoever" from their wiretaps.

Full use of the Choctaw language as military code involved speaking the language by telephone. Choctaws were placed in each company of soldiers to send or transmit it. Runners were also employed to extend the system as necessary.

Colonel Bloor, in a post-war memo, expressed his pleasure and satisfaction. "We were confident the possibilities of the telephone had been obtained without its hazards", he noted. He noted, however, that the Choctaw tongue, by itself, was unable to fully express the military terminology then in use.

No Choctaw word or phrase existed to describe "machine gun", as example. The Choctaws improvised successfully, using their words for "big gun" to describe "artillery" and "little gun shoot fast" for "machine gun". "The results were very gratifying," Bloor concluded.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

The Code Talkers

The men who made up the United States' first code talkers were either full-blood or mixed-blood Choctaw Indians.

All were born in the Choctaw Nation of the Indian Territory, in what is now southeastern Oklahoma, during the time their nation was a self-governed republic. They were schooled in the nation's neighborhood schools, and some attended its most prestigious academies.^[1]

The nineteen known code talkers are as follows:

1. Albert Billy (1885–1958). Billy, a full blood Choctaw, was born at Howe, San Bois County, Choctaw Nation, in the Indian Territory. He was a member of the 36th Division, Company E.
2. Mitchell Bobb (January 7, 1895). Bobb's place of birth was Rufe, Indian Territory Rufe, Oklahoma in the Choctaw Nation, his date of death is unknown. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
3. Victor Brown (1896–1966). Brown was born at Goodwater, Kiamitia County, Choctaw Nation.
4. Ben Carterby (December 11, 1891 – 1953). Carterby was a full blood Choctaw roll number 2045 born in Ida, Choctaw County, Oklahoma.
5. Benjamin Franklin Colbert
6. George Edwin Davenport
7. Joseph Harvey Davenport
8. James (Jimpson M.) Edwards (1898–1962). Edwards was born at Golden, Nashoba County, Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
9. Tobias W. Frazier (1892–1975). (A full blood Choctaw roll number 1823) Frazier was born in Cedar County, Choctaw Nation. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
10. Benjamin Wilburn Hampton (a full blood Choctaw roll number 10617) born May 31, 1892 in Bennington, Blue County, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, now Bryan County, Oklahoma. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
11. Noel Johnson
12. Otis Wilson Leader (a Choctaw by blood roll number 13606) was born March 6, 1882 in what is today Atoka County, Oklahoma. He died March 26, 1961 and is buried in the Coalgate Cemetery.
13. Solomon Bond Louis (April 22, 1898 – February 15, 1972). Louis, a full blood Choctaw, was born at Hochatown, Eagle County, Choctaw Nation, in the Indian Territory. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E. He died in Bennington, Bryan County, Oklahoma in 1972.
14. Pete Maytubby was born Peter P. Maytubby (a full blood Chickasaw roll number 4685) on September 26, 1892 in Reagan, Indian Territory now located in Johnston County, Oklahoma. Pete was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E. He died in 1964 and is buried at the Tishomingo City Cemetery in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.
15. Jeff Nelson (unknown). He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
16. Joseph Oklahombi (May 1, 1894–1960). Oklahombi – whose surname in the Choctaw language means man killer – was born at Bokchito, Nashoba County, Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory. He was a member of the 143rd Infantry, Headquarters Company. Oklahombi is Oklahoma's more decorated war hero, and his medals are on display in the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City.
17. Robert Taylor (a full blood Choctaw roll number 916) was born January 13, 1894 in Idabel, McCurtain County, Oklahoma (based on his registration for the military in 1917). He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
18. Charles Walter Veach (May 18, 1884 – October 13, 1966). Veach was from Durant, OK (Blue County I.T.) and Captain of Company E.,142nd Infantry. He was Captain of the Oklahoma National Guard unit that was mustered into Company E. 142nd Infantry at Ft. Bowie, TX.
19. Calvin Wilson Calvin was born June 25, 1894 at Eagletown, Eagle County, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. He was a member of the 142nd Infantry, Company E. His date of death is unknown. Wilson's name is misspelled in military records as "Cabin."

Additional Choctaw soldiers may have contributed to the effort, although records in this regard do not explicitly confirm it. Tobias Frazier, as example, often referred to a Choctaw Code Talker whose surname was Simpson, from Moyers, Oklahoma. Additional names have surfaced from time to time, and if true would expand the Choctaw Code Talkers from fourteen confirmed men to as many as eighteen.

Belated recognition

Little was said or written of the code talkers after World War I. The earliest known mention of them in the media appears to have been 1928, when an Oklahoma City newspaper described their unusual activities.^[7]

The Choctaw Code Talkers themselves appear not to have referred to themselves as such. The phrase was not coined until during or after World War II. In describing their wartime activities to family members, at least one member of the group, Tobias W. Frazier, always used the phrase, "talking on the radio", by which he meant field telephone.

During recent decades Hollywood has "discovered" code talkers, but not the Choctaw code talkers. Navajo code talkers during World War II became the subject of movies, documentaries, and books. The Navajo, with their history of opposing the United States in war, has proven in almost all respects a more popular subject than the quiet, orderly, agrarian Choctaw Indians, who adopted an American-style constitution and government, complete with elections and separation of powers, in the early 19th century.^[8]

The Choctaw government awarded the code talkers posthumous Choctaw Medals of Valor at a special ceremony in 1986. France followed suit in 1989, awarding them the Fifth Republic's Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Merite (Knight of the National Order of Merit).^[9]

In 1995 the Choctaw War Memorial was erected at the Choctaw Capitol Building in Tuskahoma, Oklahoma. It includes a huge section of granite dedicated to the Choctaw Code Talkers.^[10]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. "Choctaws: The Original Code-Talkers in Defense of Our Land and People." Unpublished manuscript.
2. ^ "Choctaw Code Talkers", Oklahoma Today, July–August 1988
3. ^ "Indian Code Talkers Will be Recognized", Antlers American, November 2, 1989
4. ^ "Choctaw Tongue Proved Too Tough for Germans", Antlers American, March 5, 1966
5. ^ "Unsung Heroes Indian Military ‘code Talkers'", Oklahoma Observer, November 19, 1986
6. ^ "Transmitting Messages in Choctaw", Col. A.W. Bloor, memo to the Commanding General, 36th Division, National Archives
7. ^ "Officer Who Led Indians in Rout of Germans Now Sets Type – Enemy Fooled by Wires Sent in Language of Red Men." Oklahoma City News, April 5, 1928.
8. ^ Debo, Angie. Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1934.
9. ^ Oklahoma Observer, September 10, 1989.
10. ^ Letter by Judy Allen of the Choctaw Nation government, October 25, 1996.

Further reading

• Bloor, Colonel A.W. "Transmitting Messages in Choctaw." Memo to Captain Spence for the Commanding General, 36th Division, U.S. Army. January 23, 1919. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
• Chastaine, Captain Ben F. Story of the 36th. Oklahoma City: Harlow Publishing Company, 1920.
• Meadows, William C. Comanche Code Talkers of World War II. College Station: University of Texas Press, 2003.