3/9/2024 0 Comments Comanche written language![]() ![]() 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. 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. 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. Nicholas Jackson (CC BY-SA 3.0, /licenses/ by-sa/3.0)Īfter the war, Chibitty moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. 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. ![]() I carried him 50 yards to a nearby basement. I remember looking back and seeing him slumped over. Chibitty recalled the day that a soldier next to him was ripped apart with shrapnel. They sent regular coded messages to headquarters, where other Comanches decoded their messages. Two Comanches were assigned to each of the Fourth Division’s three regiments. 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. The Code Talkers fought in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge, and they rescued the “Lost Battalion.”įresh troops would often ask Chibitty if he was scared in combat. Lo in July 1944, and in September of that year they drove through the Siegfried Line. They participated in the breakthrough at St. They were among the first troops to liberate Paris and the first infantry division to enter Germany. 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.”Īfter the Normandy landing, the Code Talkers saw some of the heaviest action of the war. Miraculously, Red Elk was not hit, but Code Talker Forrest Kassanavoid was not as lucky, taking shrapnel wounds to his back. 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. That’s what I was afraid of.”Ĭharles Chibitty, one of the 17 young Comanche Code Talkers, served in the U.S. But we landed in water that was deeper than anticipated. That was something we had already accepted. “Someone asked me what I was afraid of most,” Chibitty said. His regiment came under heavy fire from Germans who were strategically placed on the cliffs overlooking the beaches. Its translation is “crazy white man.” During CombatCharles Chibitty’s unit was among those that assaulted the beaches at Normandy on D-Day during the largest amphibious landing in history. Perhaps the most descriptive Comanche word was “posah-tai-vo,” their name for Adolph Hitler. The heavy bombers dropping bombs resembled a fish’s belly being cut open and eggs falling out. The hard shell of a tank reminded them of turtles, so the Comanche word for turtle meant tank. So, they combined the words for gun and sewing machine to signify a machine gun. The rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun reminded the Comanches of a sewing machine. The solution the Code Talkers devised was to put numbers after the word tugawee to designate the caliber of the gun. For example, “tugawee” means gun in Comanche, but it could mean any type of gun. They quickly learned to combine familiar words to give new meanings. The Comanches had some initial problems with English words that had no equivalent in their language. 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. ![]() “They would run us through a belt line or make us wax floors,” Chibitty recalled. They came to be known as Code Talkers, and they made crucial contributions to the Allied victory in Europe.Īs a boy attending a boarding school, Charles Chibitty was punished for speaking the Comanche language. ![]() 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. By the end of World War II, approximately 25,000 Native Americans had served in the military. By the spring of 1942, 547 Native Americans had volunteered for duty. Even America’s most isolated minority, the Native Americans, was thrust into the new era. It marked the entry of America into the Second World War, and every American citizen was affected in some way. The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a “day that will live in infamy,” as proclaimed by President Franklin Roosevelt. ![]()
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