The Last of the WWII Comanche "Code Talkers"

Charles Chibitty is not a household name to many. He passed away on July 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Chibitty was part of an Army program to use native Comanche speakers as an unbreakable code to relay messages in the European theatre. (the Pacific used Navajo). It was an impressive program, and both the German and Japanese were unable to decipher the rare language.

He remarked in a 2002 interview

"It's strange, but growing up as a child I was forbidden to speak my
native language at school,"

but he was proud he was able to serve his country in such an important capacity.

en.wikipedia.org...

Wow FredT thanks -- that was really interesting -- I knew about the Pacific theater using Navajo but never heard about the European Theater using Comanche speakers. I am sure many people owe their lives to these brave men.

Originally posted by justme1640
Wow FredT thanks -- that was really interesting -- I knew about the Pacific theater using Navajo but never heard about the European Theater using Comanche speakers. I am sure many people owe their lives to these brave men.

To be honest, neither had I. I came across his obit in a Time magazine from August and thought wow, this guy played an important part of history and we spend more time talking about "Scotty's" death than we did his.

We recently watched a movie about this called Windtalkers.
It was quite an interesting movie and while I can't vouch for its historical accuarcy, at least I became aware of these little-known Native American heroes.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
We recently watched a movie about this called Windtalkers.
It was quite an interesting movie and while I can't vouch for its historical accuarcy, at least I became aware of these little-known Native American heroes.

That is a singularly bad, and horribly inaccurate movie. From the opening scenes where the young Navajo recruits are sworn in under a 50 star American flag, to the scene where Nicholas Cage is running around the jungle shooting a Thompson with a round magazine to the depiction of the local village in a Vietnam like scenario, it was riddled with errors.

I didn't care for the movie. If they can't get simple details right, like using a 48 star flag, then F them.


Oh, and Cage overacted through the whole movie.

[edit on 1-10-2005 by HowardRoark]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
to the scene where Nicholas Cage is running around the jungle shooting a Thompson with a round magazine

If they can't get simple details right, like using a 48 star flag, then F them.
[edit on 1-10-2005 by HowardRoark]

I wouldn't have known about the flag, but there is no problem with the 50 round drum mag, perfectly historically accurate. The box mag didn't come along until later, about the time of the Thompson A1 in fact...Perhaps you should watch the movie again and see when it is that Cage is carrying a Thompson with a foregrip and drum mag.

In world war one the infantry used Choctaws as rodio operators, that's where the idea for Navajos came from. Apparently during the 30s German "anthropologists" travelled the US trying to map and learn Indian languages. Navajo was one they didn't get to study much.

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV

Originally posted by HowardRoark
to the scene where Nicholas Cage is running around the jungle shooting a Thompson with a round magazine

If they can't get simple details right, like using a 48 star flag, then F them.
[edit on 1-10-2005 by HowardRoark]

I wouldn't have known about the flag, but there is no problem with the 50 round drum mag, perfectly historically accurate. The box mag didn't come along until later, about the time of the Thompson A1 in fact...Perhaps you should watch the movie again and see when it is that Cage is carrying a Thompson with a foregrip and drum mag.

In world war one the infantry used Choctaws as rodio operators, that's where the idea for Navajos came from. Apparently during the 30s German "anthropologists" travelled the US trying to map and learn Indian languages. Navajo was one they didn't get to study much.

Actually the stick magazines were used, as the contents of a drum magazine would slide about inside making far more noise than you would like on a night patrol!

en.wikipedia.org...

If you scroll down you will see that the M1 design (issued with new buttstock and 20/30 round magazines) came into use by 1943.


EDIT: I just noticed you are on about a events earlier than the M1 was issued, my mistake.


[edit on 3-10-2005 by Captain_Sensible]

I first heard of the codetalkers through an episode of JAG.

Windtalkers came along later, but Hollywood didn't entirely forget them. Waaay, waay back in the 60's, during the big boom in WWII films, there was a relatively unexceptional effort in technicolour called, I forget!, but it's about a company of Marines in New Zealand, waiting to go into combat. When they finally do make it into the island hopping campaign there's an almost throwaway line in which one NCO tells another to order up artillery and that "the Japs don't savvy Navajo". There's even a 20 second appearance by the radio operator calling in the arty.

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV



I wouldn't have known about the flag

The forty eight star American flag from 1912 to 1959 when we went to the 49 star flag with the addition of Alaska.





The 49-Star flag was official for only one year, until July 4, 1960. when it became the The 50- star flag.




The fact that the producers of a supposedly historically accurate war film could not be bothered to use the right flag means that either they area arrogantly stupid, or that they assume that their audience is. Either way, it soured the whole movie for me.

That is a singularly bad, and horribly inaccurate movie. From the opening scenes where the young Navajo recruits are sworn in under a 50 star American flag, to the scene where Nicholas Cage is running around the jungle shooting a Thompson with a round magazine to the depiction of the local village in a Vietnam like scenario, it was riddled with errors.

I didn't care for the movie. If they can't get simple details right, like using a 48 star flag, then F them.


Oh, and Cage overacted through the whole movie.

[edit on 1-10-2005 by HowardRoark]

Remenicent of the Pearl Harbor movie, with what I beleiva are Spruance Class ships, and if you look real close yu can see an Aegis (hard to miss the SPY 1 radar).

mod edit to correct quote code

[edit on 5-11-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV

I wouldn't have known about the flag

The fact that the producers of a supposedly historically accurate war film could not be bothered to use the right flag means that either they area arrogantly stupid, or that they assume that their audience is. Either way, it soured the whole movie for me.

I'm not sure what you mean by "historically accurate" here. Are you being sarcastic? Are you being sarcastic in my specific direction? I don't remember saying anything about the movie being historically accurate, I just pointed out that the use of tommy gun and drum mag was historically accurate, for that period of the war.

I wouldn't have known about the flag, unless I chose to think particularaly deeply about it and remembered when certain states joined the union AND cared enough to look that closely at the flag.

If it was a movie about George Washington and they showed a 50-star flag I would feel my intelligence had been insulted, even I know about the original 13-star flag. (I hope it was 13 stars!).

I'm not a yank, that detail is way too small for me to care about.

What annoyed me was that this became a "message" movie. Why not do some research and tell the story of a real Codetalker?

Actually, Pearl Harbour annoyed the hell out of me far more than Windtalkers. Aside from the boring soapie romance was the fact that no pilot from Hawaii was on the Doolittle Raid. And Dan Ackroyd's character seems a poor take on Rochefort (was he the guy?) who predicted Midway, but no US Navy intell guy predicted Pearl Harbour, or anything to do with it, pretty much.