Posted on 10/11/2021 12:51:05 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
I really looked forward to seeing the film and about 15 minutes in, I was do let down. As a rule I generally liked Nicholas Cage movies at the time.
We all have our phases.
Not as well-known but there also were Code Talkers in WWI.
Because the lines were so fluid, they tended to leave the commo lines for the field telephones in place and as the new side took a bit of trench, they just tied into the commo lines the previous occupants had left. Not to mention that in that environment, in just a few days time anything that was left on the ground would be buried in mud.
Except the Huns took to tapping into the lines of any trench they occupied and running a connection from there back to their rear lines, where they could continue to monitor it even if they were displaced. So the Germans were having a YUGE advantage because they were privy to all of the Allies’ field telephone conversations.
Until a certain Col. A.W. Bloor of the 142nd Infantry Regiment (36th Division) overheard a conversation between some Choctaw Indians in his command and realized that if he couldn’t understand them, then the Germans probably couldn’t either.
The Indians first had to invent their own code because there were lots of military terms there was no Choctaw equivalent of. But they began using the Code Talkers in late October of 1918 and from the very first offensive that followed they had dramatically more success than previous offensives, probably because it had been years since they launched an attack that the Germans didn’t already know the full plans for before it started.
Thanks to the Choctaw from Oklahoma.
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Yes I knew about the Choctaw Indians in WWI, and like them the Navajos also had to make up their own code, so even if someone knew Navajo they still did not know what they were talking about.
“Thank you for saving me 2 hours of drivel!”
Glad to help.
I give a lot of lea-way when history and big name Hollywood names are in the same movie, realizing the Name wins out over history every time. This movie was especially egregious however and killed the entire film.
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