Samuel Sandoval, among last Navajo Code Talkers, dead at 98

NY Post ^ | 08/01/2022 | Anders Hagstrom

[DFG]

Samuel Sandoval, one of the last members of the Navajo Code Talkers who encrypted critical U.S. messages during World War II, has died at 98.

Navajo Code Talkers famously used language based on the Navajo Nation’s native tongue to transmit messages regarding Japanese troop placements and movements during U.S. Marine assaults throughout the Pacific. The Navajo language was unwritten at the time and U.S. enemies had virtually no means of deciphering the code.

Sandoval was among four remaining code talkers still alive today, from the hundreds who had been recruited during the war. The three others who are living include Peter MacDonald, John Kinsel Sr. and Thomas H. Begay.

Sandoval’s wife, Malula, announced his death to the Associated Press on Saturday. He died at a hospital near his home in New Mexico.

“Sam always said, ‘I wanted my Navajo youngsters to learn, they need to know what we did and how this code was used and how it contributed to the world,'” she said Saturday. “That the Navajo language was powerful and always to continue carrying our legacy.”

Sandoval’s death comes roughly a month after the U.S. lost its last Medal of Honor recipient from World War II.

[ansel12]

RIP vet, but this windtalker thing is one of the most strange military/publicity things I’ve ever seen.

The Army started using Indian code talkers in WWI and used them in every theater in WWII, the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe.

[ViLaLuz]

I didn’t know that. Very interesting!

[oh8eleven]

Semper Fi ...

[Bull Snipe]

Rest in peace, fallen warrior.

[A_Former_Democrat]

RIP, the Talkers are one of the great stories of WWII

The Greatest Generation

[muir_redwoods]

What a brilliant idea it was to communicate in the Navajo language. I would love to have seen the Japanese code breakers listening in reaction to the “code”.

Ironic that both Navajo and Japanese had ancestors who migrated from Central Asia to their eventual homeland.

RIP Sir, thank you for your service.

[antidemoncrat]

Navajo Code Talkers did a great service to this country.

[Myrddin]

The Duolingo app supports the Navajo language. During some of the war activities around Kosovo, the brits were employing Royal Welsh Fusaliers speaking Welsh for field communications with a similar efficacy to the Navajo code talkers. Duolingo supports Welsh too. For a more obscure language, Scots Gaelic is spoken fluently by less that 15,000 persons on earth. I'm working on adding to that tally.

Kudos for the special services provided by the Navajo code talkers. Patriots bringing a unique capability to the national security.

[The Great RJ]

While the Navaho code talkers are more well known other Native American tribes also served in that role including the Lakota. There should be a monument in Washington DC honoring all the code talkers in both WW-I and WW-II. It would be especially fitting to honor those Native Americans serving in this role in WW-I as at the time they were not considered US citizens.

[mabarker1]

RIP and Thank You for Your Service.

3 still alive ping.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Thank you, DFG!
PING to Kathy in Alaska!

[Verginius Rufus]

The code talkers weren't just speaking the normal Navajo language, but had an elaborate code to make it even harder for the enemy to crack. German linguists had studied a number of American Indian languages, but none had learned Navajo (of course the code talkers were being used in the Pacific, but Japan was an ally of Germany).

The Marine Corps Museum in Triangle, VA, has a section devoted to the code talkers.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[ansel12]

I don’t know which Army code talkers of WWI were citizens or not, but Indians have been becoming citizens since 1831, so who knows about those individuals?

[Paal Gulli]

"I don’t know which Army code talkers of WWI were citizens or not, but Indians have been becoming citizens since 1831, so who knows about those individuals?"

You don't have to be a citizen to serve in the US military. These days a Green Card qualifies you. In fact, Green Card holders are subject to the draft lottery, just like natural-borns.

We've had quite a few ferriners fighting on our side in every war. In the War for Southern Independence, a third of the yankee army were foreigners. An American family could buy their boy out of being drafted and they'd hire a European immigrant to take his place. That's how Joseph Pulitzer came to America, recruited back in Hungary to join a yankee cavalry unit, and his passage to America paid by his recruiter.

There were some famous ferriners in the Revolutionary War, too, some of whom were just looking for a good scrap and went back home to Europe looking for still another scrap when our war was over.

The WWII code-talkers were little-known until the Nicholas Cage movie, "Wind Talkers," but even fewer know we also used Indians for code-talkers in WWI.

As the "Front Lines" in France got swapped back and forth, whenever the Germans made forward progress they tapped into the Allied telephone lines, then ran a trunk line back to their switchboard. With all the mud and all the wire and wire repairs, it was easy to conceal their "tap" into the Allied communications. And there was no way to clean it all up without completely disrupting allied communications while the clean-up was under way.

All of the Allies' attempts at sneak attacks were failures because the Huns were listening in to all the te And they listened in on everything that was going on. lephone conversations. Until they started using Indians as telephone operators. Cherokee and Choctaw I remember, but I'm thinking there was at least one more tribe, too (can't find my notes on that right now). And the first major successful counteroffensive they managed to mount (the name of which escapes me) was credited to using Indian code talkers, which was the only way they could figure to maintain the element of surprise.