The Last Comanche Code-Talker is gone.

Free Republic | 7-20-05 | Free Republic

[Old Landmarks]

The last Comanche Code-Talker, Charles Chibitty has passed away. He died at around 4 p.m. today in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He was 83 years of age, just shy of 84. Charlie had been ill and in the hospital for several months.

He was a friend to many of us and a good father, husband and soldier.

[Liberty Valance]

Rest in Peace Soldier.

[GOPJ]

Can anyone recommend a good site to read up on what they did? Thanks.

They helped win World War II and were heroes to the greatest generation soldiers. If you find a good site, share the link...

[Ciexyz]

I enjoyed that film about the Codetalkers starring Nicholas Cage, and I was surprised that it wasn't a bigger hit. Seems like Hollywood abandoned the film because it was patriotic and portrayed the military at war.

[Eagles6]

May you rest in peace Mr. Chibitty. Thank you for your service.

BTW the movie with Nicholas Cage stunk. It is a great story and the other actors were good but Cage's abyssmal acting ability ruined it for all of us who saw it.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this.

I have pinged a group that will salute what he and his fellow Code Talkers did for our GIs in WWII.

[HiTech RedNeck]

.

[xzins]

God bless the Chibitty family at this time of loss. May He grant them peace and the comfort of knowing their loved one helped preserve freedom in his entire nation....even his world. An amazing legacy.

[Happy2BMe]

Thanks for the ping on this one. The Commanche Code Warriors were Braves of the First Calibre.

[Happy2BMe]

Thank you for posting this.

[Ciexyz]

BTW the movie with Nicholas Cage stunk.

It's the only Hollywood film we've even gotten on the topic, and probably the last.

[Smartass]

They were truly extraordinary. The enemy was totally confounded. America would have had a harder time if it weren't for them.

[ppaul]

I figure that they were God's gift to save this Nation not only for us but for their own people.

To save the whole world.
We owe a debt of gratitude that we can never repay.

[Grampa Dave]

It was an incredible legacy. My Dad got to talk to a couple of the Commanche Code Talkers who lived in Oklahoma. He was awed by what they did and how they didn't really want to talk about it.

[Happy2BMe]

And they save countless American and ally lives plus an early defeat of Hitler.

[Eagles6]

Probably. Just wished someone else played Cage's part. There's supposed to be a movie coming out,"Ghost Soldiers" about a Ranger liberation of a POW camp in the Phillipines. Great book. Also one about Iwo Jima

[SledgeCS]

May you R.I.P you great American. Let all young persons in this country remember what this great person did.

[BykrBayb]

I found quite a few informative websites about Charles Chibitty and and his fellow Comanche Code-Talkers. Here are some excerpts. (I haven't bothered posting "-snip-" throughout, because these are all just -snips-.)

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http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/1999/b11301999_bt550-99.html - November 30, 1999. DoD press release. CHARLES CHIBITTY, COMANCHE CODE TALKER, RECOGNIZED AT PENTAGON CEREMONY

Chibitty was presented with the Knowlton Award in recognition of his significant contributions to military intelligence efforts.

Along with 16 other Comanche Indians, Chibitty was part of the Army's 4th Signal Company, also known as the Code Talkers. Like the Choctaws of World War I, and the Navajos in the Pacific Theater, the Comanche Code Talkers used their native language to prevent the enemies of the European Theater from intercepting messages of the allied troops during World War II. The unit was instrumental during the Normandy invasion.

The Knowlton Award was established in 1995 by the Military Intelligence Corps Association. The award recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to Army Intelligence, who have high standards of integrity and moral character, and who display outstanding degree of professional competence. It is named for Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton who performed distinguished military service during the American Revolutionary War. He was appointed by George Washington to form a regiment expressly for intelligence services.

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http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec1999/n12031999_9912032.html - Updated: 14 Jan 2003. DoD news article. DoD Honors Last Comanche World War II "Code Talker"

Using the code the Comanches created in 1941 during training at Fort Benning, Ga., Chibitty sent the first message on D-Day which, in English, translated to "Five miles to the right of the designated area and five miles inland the fighting is fierce and we need help."

"We compiled a 100-word vocabulary of military terms during training," said Chibitty, who joined the Army in January 1941 along with 20 other Comanches. "The Navajo did the same thing. The Navajos became code talkers about a year after the Comanches, but there were over a hundred of them because they had so much territory (in the Pacific Theater) to cover."

Choctaw Indians were used as code talkers during World War I.

Since there was no Comanche word for "tank," the code talkers used their word for "turtle." "Machine gun" became "sewing machine," Chibitty noted, "because of the noise the sewing machine made when my mother was sewing." "Bomber" became "pregnant airplane." "Hitler," he said with a grin, was "posah-tai-vo," or "crazy white man."

Chibitty said two Comanches were assigned to each of the 4th Infantry Division's three regiments. They sent coded messages from the front line to division headquarters, where other Comanches decoded the messages. He said some of the code talkers were wounded, but all survived the war.

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http://www.pentagon.gov/specials/nativeam02/cemetery.html - Date not listed, but appears to be late 2002. By Rudi Williams, American Forces Press Service. Last WWII Comanche Code Talker Visits Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery

After meeting with the defense secretary and other top Pentagon officials on Nov. 5, Charles Chibitty, the last surviving World War II Comanche code talker, donned his feathered Indian chief's headdress and offered a prayer in the Pentagon Chapel for those killed in the terrorist attack on the building.

The aging code talker then placed a wreath and offered an Indian prayer at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery. This marks the third time the 81-year old war veteran was honored at the Pentagon for his service to the nation. His visits in 1992 and 1999 were also in November during National American Indian Heritage Month.

When Charles Chibitty, the last surviving World War II Comanche code talker, visited Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, the secretary presented him a momento of a small engraved box. Photo by Rudi Williams. http://www.pentagon.gov/news/Nov2002/200211081a.jpg

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http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/comanche.html - May 2002. From The Albuquerque Journal. By Jim Belshaw.

He said the Comanches were received well in the Army. “We had a good boxing team. Most of us were boxing in Indian schools, you know?” he said. “We fought in the Army all the time. Only thing we didn't have was a light heavyweight. But there was this MP who worked out with us. He fought light-heavy for us. He was Jewish. We called him Chief Buffalo.”

He made it through the war unscathed, his worst moment coming at a place called St. Lo. His unit was dug in and taking heavy shelling from the Germans. “I cried that morning,” he said. “I was afraid because we had to move up again. I had the hell scared out me. I sat in that hole ‘and talked to the Creator.”

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http://www.gordon.army.mil/AC/WWII/CODETALK.HTM - 01/12/05. By Renee Jones, Army Communicator on-line, Voice of the Signal Regiment.

Sometimes superencryption was used when the English message they had to encode in Comanche was itself already encoded: "We're on second with two outs in the bottom of the fifth." All through this, no errors were noted.

In 1989, the last three Comanche codetalkers — Red Elk, Charles Chibitty and Forrest Dassanavoid — received for the tribe the Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Merite from the French government and, in 1992, a U.S. Defense Department certificate of appreciation.

In 1940, William Karty, a Comanche Civilian Conservation Corps camp director, moved his wife's idea for an all-Comanche "codetalking" unit through the bureaucracy — resulting in 17 Comanches being sent to Fort Benning's 4th Signal Company, 4th Infantry Division. There they met 2d Lt. Hugh Foster, just out of West Point and assigned the mission of developing a system so the Comanches could communicate with each other without the enemy or other Comanches understanding them.

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These are all just tidbits. I recommend reading all the articles. These guys were very impressive.

[kstewskis]

For when you get back, Jay...

Godspeed to this truly, special hero!

[Ciexyz]

Who's starring in the upcoming "Ghost Soldiers"--or hasn't it been cast yet?

Colin Farrell is in everything these days, and he was good in another WW II flic -- starring Bruce Willis, it was set in a POW camp in Germany. Can't remember the title and the film showed the American POW's as racists, killing a black POW. That ruined the film for me, because Hollywood made it all up. The original incident involved Brits who staged a breakout, it wasn't concerning Americans at all, certainly not the belligerent, obnoxious Redneck racists that Hollywood portrayed.

[YHAOS]

There was a novel, Battle Cry by Leon Uris, and a movie of the same name, both which came out in the '50s.

The Navahos were mentioned in passing in Battle Cry as just part of the background to the story about a Marine Battalion in the Pacific during WWII. That was the only mention made of code-talkers which I encountered until the movie Cage was in. As I recall, Battle Cry had one heck of a line-up of actors and actresses.

Uris is best remembered for Exodus which was also made into a movie.