With a Pistol and Radio, the Comanche Code Talkers Were Vital to WWII

With a Pistol and Radio, the Comanche Code Talkers Were Vital to WWII
The Code Talkers of the 4th Signal Company were among the soldiers who landed at Utah Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Public domain
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The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a “day that will live in infamy,” as proclaimed by President Franklin Roosevelt. It marked the entry of America into the Second World War, and every American citizen was affected in some way. Even America’s most isolated minority, the Native Americans, was thrust into the new era. By the spring of 1942, 547 Native Americans had volunteered for duty. By the end of World War II, approximately 25,000 Native Americans had served in the military. Among the earliest volunteers was a small group of Comanche Native Americans from the Lawton, Oklahoma, area, who were selected for special duty by the U.S. Army. They came to be known as Code Talkers, and they made crucial contributions to the Allied victory in Europe.

As a boy attending a boarding school, Charles Chibitty was punished for speaking the Comanche language. “They would run us through a belt line or make us wax floors,” Chibitty recalled. Ironically, it was his native tongue that was responsible for Chibitty and other tribal members being recruited into an elite World War II Army unit.

2008 Code Talkers Comanche Nation Bronze medal. The reverse side features the Comanche Nation logo with the 90th Infantry Division insignia on the left and the 4th Infantry Division insignia on the right. According to the Comanche Nation, the inscription “Puhihwitekwa Ekasahpana” loosely translates to “soldiers talking on phones made of metal.” Designed and engraved by Don Everhart. United States Mint. (Public domain)
2008 Code Talkers Comanche Nation Bronze medal. The reverse side features the Comanche Nation logo with the 90th Infantry Division insignia on the left and the 4th Infantry Division insignia on the right. According to the Comanche Nation, the inscription “Puhihwitekwa Ekasahpana” loosely translates to “soldiers talking on phones made of metal.” Designed and engraved by Don Everhart. United States Mint. Public domain

Signing Up for Service

William Karty was a 30-year-old Comanche who worked as the director of the Fort Cobb Indian Conservation Corps when the United States entered the war. He realized that the Comanche language could provide an unbreakable code for the U.S. Army. As Karty recalled, “I knew Comanches could talk on telephones and I knew the Army had radios, so I figured we could talk Comanche on them.”

Karty recruited 20 young Comanche males to his project.  When an Army officer learned about Karty’s initiative, he went “nuts” over the concept, according to Karty. Seventeen of Karty’s original 20 were enlisted into the U.S. Signal Corps. Over one third of all able-bodied Indian males ages 18 to 50 served in World War II. U.S. Senator Charles L. McNary remarked in the Saturday Evening Post, “We would not need the Selective Service if all volunteered like Indians. It is a good show of loyalty.”

One of the 17 young Comanches was Charles Chibitty, who was still at Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1940. Chibitty was descended from the famous Chief Ten Bears, one of the signers of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. Chibitty recalled:
Mama had a little money and sent for me to come home for Christmas. That’s when I heard they were recruiting Comanches to be Code Talkers. My mother didn’t want me to go. But I told her I would finish school later. That was December 1940.
Two Comanches were assigned to each of the 4th Division’s three regiments and often found themselves on the front lines equipped with only a .45 pistol, a helmet, and a radio. (Public domain)
Two Comanches were assigned to each of the 4th Division’s three regiments and often found themselves on the front lines equipped with only a .45 pistol, a helmet, and a radio. Public domain
The volunteers had no idea what the project involved, but they were soon assigned to the Army’s Fourth Signal Company in the Fourth Infantry Division. They began training at Fort Benning, Georgia, in January 1941. They initially compiled a 100-word vocabulary of medical terms during their training. Lt. Hugh Foster took charge of the Comanche unit. Foster recalled that the Comanches enjoyed a good laugh at his efforts to pronounce their language.
This was not the first time that a Native American language had been used as a code during wartime. During World War I, an Army Capt. Lawrence heard two Choctaw soldiers talking and got the idea to use their native tongue as a code. Similarly, Navajo tribal members were utilized in greater numbers in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Since a much greater territory needed coverage in the Pacific, approximately 400 Navajo were recruited as Code Talkers. The Navajo and Comanche codes were the only codes that remained undecipherable throughout the war.

An Ideal Code

Rapid, secret communication was crucial to successful military operations. The front lines required a constant flow of information in order to coordinate their movements. If vital information fell into enemy hands, the enemy had a tremendous advantage. However, there was nothing new about using code—military leaders had been doing so for over 2,000 years, dating back to the Greek and Persian wars.
The Code Talkers of the 4th Signal Company were among the soldiers who landed at Utah Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. (Public domain)
The Code Talkers of the 4th Signal Company were among the soldiers who landed at Utah Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Public domain

In the 19th century, a German officer developed codes he called cryptograms. He determined which letters were used the most in a language and worked out ways to break codes. The Japanese were convinced that their “Purple Code” was indecipherable in World War II; however, American intelligence cracked the code early in the war, giving the Allies a great advantage. Many Native American languages had no written form, making it impossible for the enemy to decipher them.

The Comanches had some initial problems with English words that had no equivalent in their language. They quickly learned to combine familiar words to give new meanings. For example, “tugawee” means gun in Comanche, but it could mean any type of gun. The solution the Code Talkers devised was to put numbers after the word tugawee to designate the caliber of the gun.  The rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun reminded the Comanches of a sewing machine. So, they combined the words for gun and sewing machine to signify a machine gun. The hard shell of a tank reminded them of turtles, so the Comanche word for turtle meant tank. The heavy bombers dropping bombs resembled a fish’s belly being cut open and eggs falling out. Perhaps the most descriptive Comanche word was “posah-tai-vo,” their name for Adolph Hitler. Its translation is “crazy white man.”

During Combat

Charles Chibitty’s unit was among those that assaulted the beaches at Normandy on D-Day during the largest amphibious landing in history. His regiment came under heavy fire from Germans who were strategically placed on the cliffs overlooking the beaches. “Someone asked me what I was afraid of most,” Chibitty said. “Was I afraid of dying? No. That was something we had already accepted. But we landed in water that was deeper than anticipated. A lot of boys drowned. That’s what I was afraid of.”
Charles Chibitty, one of the 17 young Comanche Code Talkers, served in the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division. (Public domain)
Charles Chibitty, one of the 17 young Comanche Code Talkers, served in the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division. Public domain

Roderick Red Elk, a fellow Code Talker, had the unenviable duty of climbing a 20-foot pole to string telephone wire while attempting to dodge a hail of bullets. Miraculously, Red Elk was not hit, but Code Talker Forrest Kassanavoid was not as lucky, taking shrapnel wounds to his back. The first coded message Chibitty transmitted back to headquarters was, “5 miles to the right of designated area and 5 miles inland; the fighting is fierce and we need help.”

After the Normandy landing, the Code Talkers saw some of the heaviest action of the war. They were among the first troops to liberate Paris and the first infantry division to enter Germany.  They participated in the breakthrough at St. Lo in July 1944, and in September of that year they drove through the Siegfried Line. The Code Talkers fought in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge, and they rescued the “Lost Battalion.”

Fresh troops would often ask Chibitty if he was scared in combat. He always replied, “If you weren’t scared you were either crazy or lying.” Chibitty and his colleagues often found themselves on the front lines equipped only with a .45 pistol, a helmet, and a radio. Two Comanches were assigned to each of the Fourth Division’s three regiments. They sent regular coded messages to headquarters, where other Comanches decoded their messages. Chibitty recalled the day that a soldier next to him was ripped apart with shrapnel. “His name was Private Mullins. I can’t remember his first name. I remember looking back and seeing him slumped over. He had been hit. I carried him 50 yards to a nearby basement. But he took two breaths and died.”

The French Consul for Oklahoma and Texas awarded the Chevalier de L’Ordre du Merit, a French badge of merit for distinguished military achievements, to the three surviving Code Talkers in 1989. Nicholas Jackson (CC BY-SA 3.0, CreativeCommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0)
The French Consul for Oklahoma and Texas awarded the Chevalier de L’Ordre du Merit, a French badge of merit for distinguished military achievements, to the three surviving Code Talkers in 1989. Nicholas Jackson CC BY-SA 3.0, CreativeCommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0

After the war, Chibitty moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. He performed as a champion Indian dancer at pow-wows for the rest of his life and gave numerous presentations to schools and other groups about the Code Talkers. However, it wasn’t until over 40 years later that a series of belated honors was bestowed upon Chibitty and his fellow surviving Code Talker brothers. In 1989, the French Consul for Oklahoma and Texas honored the three surviving Code Talkers, Chibitty, Roderick Red Elk, and Forrest Kassanovoid with the Chevalier de L’Ordre du Merit. In 1992, Governor David Walters of Oklahoma also honored the Code Talkers for their extraordinary service. And in 1999, the U.S. Army presented a special award to Chibitty, then the last surviving Code Talker. In a ceremony at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, Chibitty received the Knowlton Award, which recognized individuals for outstanding intelligence work.

Just before his death on July 20, 2005, at the age of 83, Chibitty reminisced about the war: “We could never do it again. It’s all electronic and video in war now.” Even so, Chibitty and his Code Talker brothers played a vital role in the Allied victory in Europe.

Comanche Code Talkers of the 4th Signal Company at Fort Gordon, Ga. (Public domain)
Comanche Code Talkers of the 4th Signal Company at Fort Gordon, Ga. Public domain
Portions of this article were published by the author in Oklahoma Today magazine, Vol. 50, no. 3, May/June, 2000. 
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.