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.
The government of the Choctaw Nation maintains that the men were the first American native code talkers ever to serve in the US military. They were conferred the Texas Medal of Valor in 2007. [1]
Code talking, the practice of using Native American languages for use as military code by American armed forces, got its start during World War I. The German forces proved not only to speak excellent English but also to have intercepted and broken American military codes. An American officer, Colonel Alfred Wainwright Bloor, noticed a number of American Indians serving with him in the 142nd Infantry in France. Overhearing two Choctaw Indians speaking with each another, he realized he could not understand them. He also realized that if he could not understand them, the same would be true for Germans, no matter how good their English skills. Besides, many Native American languages have never been written down.
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. 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. Native Americans were already serving as messengers and runners between units. By placing Choctaws in each company, messages could be transmitted regardless if the radio was overheard or the telephone lines tapped.
In a postwar memo, Bloor expressed his pleasure and satisfaction. "We were confident the possibilities of the telephone had been obtained without its hazards." 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 a "machine gun", for example. So the Choctaws improvised, using their words for "big gun" to describe "artillery" and "little gun shoot fast" for "machine gun." "The results were very gratifying," Bloor concluded. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
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, when their nation was a self-governed republic. Later, other tribes would use their languages for the military in various units, most notably the Navajo in World War II.< [7]
The known code talkers are as follows:
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| Choctaw Nation Congressional Gold Medal | |
 Choctaw Code Talkers, 55:30, 2010, American Archive of Public Broadcasting [8] |
Little was said or written of the code talkers after World War I. The earliest known mention in the media appears to have been in 1919 when soldiers returned from France. [9] Their return was reported in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Ten years after the war ended, the Oklahoma City News described their military actions. [10] The Choctaw themselves appear not to have referred to themselves as 'code talkers'. 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.
"New York, May 31.-When the steamship Louisville arrived here today from Brest [France] with 1,897 troops on board, considerable attention was attracted by a detail of 50 Indian soldiers under the command of Captain [Elijah W.] Horner of Mena, Ark. These Indians have to their credit a unique achievement in frustrating German wire tappers. Under the command of Chief George Baconrid, an Indian from the Osage reservation, they transmitted orders in Choctaw, a language not included in German war studies."
— Arkansas Gazette, Sunday, June 1, 1919 [9]
World War II Navajo code talkers have become the subject of movies, documentaries, and books, but not the Choctaw. The Navajo, with their history of opposing the United States in war, have proven in almost all aspects to be a more popular subject than the quiet, orderly, agrarian Choctaw Indians, who, in the early 19th century, adopted an American-style constitution and government, complete with elections and separation of powers. [11]
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). [12]
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. [13]
On November 15, 2008, The Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-420), was signed into law by President George W. Bush, which recognizes every Native American code talker who served in the United States military during World War I or World War II, with the exception of the already-awarded Navajo, with a Congressional Gold Medal for his tribe, to be retained by the Smithsonian Institution, and a silver medal duplicate to each code talker. [14]
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