Code Talker (2 page)

There are some things Chester remembers that don't jibe completely with history as read in a textbook. That is to be expected, especially concerning the wartime events experienced by the code talkers. The code talkers were such a well-kept secret that their very existence was classified for twenty-three years following the close of hostilities in World War II. In 1968, when their contributions to the war effort were finally declassified, their history was available to be recorded for the first time. Much of this history relied on memories that were nearly a quarter of a century old.

This is Chester Nez's saga. We record here his recollection of events. Where his memories diverge from accepted history, his memories take precedence. We have worked hard to accurately depict the wealth of information Chester remembers.

Also, some of the practices and events that Chester recalls diverge somewhat from traditional Navajo practices. We have striven to footnote these divergences throughout the book, but once again, we have recounted things as Chester remembers them. It is impossible to neatly label and codify the customs of the Navajos, now numbering more than a quarter-million people. Divergence is inevitable.

As our interviews progressed, I began to write. But something
was
wrong. It wasn't Chester; it was me.

I'd finished Chester's biography before I realized that his story wasn't mine. It was his. Chester is alive, and this book needed to be his memoir, not a biography written by someone else. So I listened to the tapes again. By then we had recorded more than seventy-five hours.

The calm, modest voice on those tapes reminded me that, traditionally, Navajos are private people. They don't seek praise or applause when one has simply done his duty. In the telling of his story, Chester's desire is simple: he hopes that those readers who are not Native American will appreciate and understand something outside their own experience, and that those who are Native American will find a source of pride in their heritage.

I listened. Chester's voice was strong, his multifaceted story riveting.

Here it is.

 

Judith Schiess Avila

May 2011

CHAPTER ONE

Guadalcanal Invasion

Nothing ever dried. My damp combat uniform chafed at the back of my neck. Water ran down my forehead and into my eyes. A trickle meandered down my back as I stood on deck in the dark. The railing of the transport ship dripped with rain, but in the tropical climate, its wet surface was warm to the touch. The ship rolled slightly in the South Pacific waters, a constant unsettling movement that, just weeks ago, would have made me queasy. But my stomach held steady.

Born to the Navajo Nation, now a Marine—Private First Class Chester Nez—I'd never even seen the ocean before enlisting.

It was good, being able to sail without feeling squeamish. I tried to concentrate on that, and not on where I was heading. But thoughts seeped into my brain like seawater. Like other traditional Navajos, I'd always believed in the “Right Way.” Balance must be found, not only between individuals, but between each person and his world. My hands gripped the rail. The ship's steady progress brought me inexorably closer to Guadalcanal. For three months, battle had raged there. How could I find any balance in that?

I reminded myself that my Navajo people had always been warriors, protectors. In that, there was honor. I would concentrate on being a warrior and on protecting my homeland. Within hours, whether in harmony with this world or not, I knew I would join my fellow Marines in the fight.

Belowdecks, machine guns, earthmovers, and other heavy equipment filled the ship's belly. The items we were likely to need first had been packed last so that they would be easily accessible upon landing. Aircraft carriers had preceded our troop ships, carrying dive-bombers to blast Guadalcanal's beach prior to the Marine landing.
²
The transport ship I sailed upon was accompanied by destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and additional transports.

I squinted. A battleship was barely visible through the gloom off the port side of my transport. A shiver—pride? relief?—ran through me. Battleships and aircraft carriers were the largest vessels in the U.S. fleet. On the huge ship's deck, I caught glimpses of a triple gun turret, wielding guns that fired sixteen-inch-diameter shells. Its dark bulk appeared and disappeared in the predawn murk.
³

We thirteen code talkers traveling with the fleet were late-arriving members of General Vandergrift's 1st Marine Division. Several regiments of the 2d Marine Division sailed with us in the transport ships. Our briefing had told us that the capture of Guadalcanal, an island in the Solomon chain off the northeast coast of Australia, was the first stepping-stone to an eventual attack on Japan. At Guadalcanal, the Japanese enemy waited.

I could have stayed in high school, I thought. Maybe I should have. But, as a warrior, how could I ignore the fact that my country had been attacked?

I'd volunteered for the Marines just seven months before, in April 1942, only a few months after the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Until joining up, I had never left Navajo land, except for a few hours en route to boarding school. My wiry frame barely met the Marines' minimum weight requirement of 122 pounds, but I knew I was strong. I straightened and shoved trembling hands into my pockets. I was a man now.

The ship would not reach Guadalcanal for a couple of hours. I walked below several levels to the mess hall, where the taut faces of the other twelve code talkers aboard ship greeted me. We were all dressed the same. Our combat uniforms were a gray-tan color, a bit grayer than the color now commonly called khaki. They consisted of a short jacket and trousers, with a darker brown T-shirt. We carried a poncho that reached almost to our ankles. We had been issued two pairs of thick socks, supposed to keep us from developing blisters on the march, and two sets of underwear. Our helmets were a tan-gray color with a cloth covering that had blotches of faded green, tan, and dark gray. Those blotches helped them blend in with the terrain—camouflage, the Marines called it. Our boots, boondockers, were made of thick leather. They came up to just above our ankles.

I liked the smell in the galley area, although lots of Marines complained about it. I guess I'll always be drawn to the aroma of cooking food, after spending my early years in boarding schools where I was never able to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, or as much as I wanted. We lined up and joked with the guys who were serving, asking them to give us plenty of chow. Sometimes we got slabs of steak too big for a dinner plate. We placed our trays, loaded with sausage, corned beef, steak, and scrambled eggs, on a long, narrow counter and stood to eat. Every time the ship pitched or rolled, the trays slid, moving from one guy to the next and back again. We'd wait for our own tray to slide back, then resume eating.

As I raised my coffee cup, Charlie Begay jabbed a sharp elbow into my ribs. “Hey, Chester. Sure could use a beer right now. How about you? Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweiser?”
⁴

I chuckled. While in San Diego, on liberty from Marine basic training, we men had frequented bars, wearing our uniforms so we wouldn't get thrown out like other Native Americans did. Many of us had never had a drink before joining the Marines.

“Budweiser,” I said. “Always Budweiser.” I laughed and resisted the urge to switch from English to Navajo. “That place in San Diego. The Slop Chute, enit?” I glanced around at the other code talkers. “Wish we were there instead of here.”

English came easily now, ever since boarding school when we were kids. My fellow code talkers and I knew the white people's words, but among ourselves we generally spoke in Navajo. Because of our mission, we didn't do a whole lot of moving around the ship or mingling with the other Marines. Instead, we gathered together on shipboard, practicing our code. Always practicing.

All thirteen of us men had had a hand in designing the secret code, together with nineteen other Navajo Marines, back in the States.
⁵
Recruited for our fluency in both Navajo and English, we'd been locked in a room after basic training and told to develop a secret military language using our native Navajo. Now each man was determined that the code would guarantee an American victory over the Japanese in the South Pacific.

“Jackass.” I laughed. “Whose idea was ‘jackass'?” The Navajo word for “jackass”—spelled
tkele-cho-gi
in our code phonetics—stood for the English letter
J
. I looked around at the smooth, young faces of my friends. They all grinned. Whose idea had that been?

The white man's military had accepted us as tough Marines. Hardened by the rigors of life on the reservation or the Checkerboard Area, we often outperformed our white peers. In basic training, Marine sergeants bragged about the prowess of Platoon 382, the Navajo recruits. And our code was part of a bold plan to take the South Pacific islands back from the dominant Japanese.

Cutting through endless ocean toward my first battle, the code's proving ground, my twelve buddies and I studied and restudied the entire vocabulary of two-hundred-plus words. All of us were fluent, yet we all continued to practice. We could afford no doubts, no hesitation. Accuracy and speed were a matter of life and death.

We practiced transmitting messages among ourselves and to code talkers on other ships. The new language became solid and unshakable, embedded in our minds as firmly as childhood memories. We transmitted, deciphered, and responded to messages almost without hesitation. We were ready. We hoped.

I smiled to myself, thinking about the shipboard radio operator who'd heard the strange code and warned his commanding officer that the Japanese had broken into U.S. communications. Apparently, officers on the flotilla of ships around us compared notes, wondering if communication security had been breached. They shut down all U.S. communications in order to isolate the Japanese transmissions. They heard only silence.

When communications resumed, we Navajos started transmitting again. We relayed information about the landing craft and the groups of personnel who would populate each craft for the imminent landing on Guadalcanal.

Not even our shipmates knew of our secret communications mission. But several of the admirals had been informed of the code developed by thirty-two
⁶
Navajo Marines. I guess they finally realized that what they were hearing was that code. Forbidden to divulge this new secret weapon, they simply spread the word to other high-ranking officers that a group of Native Americans had joined the Marines. And the United States Marines were speaking Navajo.

 

 

We Navajo men moved belowdecks to the barracks area. We stood around in a random group. One man, probably Eugene Crawford, said a prayer for all of the Marines about to land on the Japanese-held island. Speaking Navajo, he asked that all would survive, of course knowing how unlikely that was. I'm sure the other men added their own silent prayers, like I did. I talked to the Old Man upstairs, asking for protection.

The Marine brass encouraged prayer. I wasn't sure whether they really believed in its power, or whether they were like baseball coaches who observed every possible superstition. But they approved of our praying.

Four or five miles north of Guadalcanal, everyone gathered on deck in the rain. I looked around at my fellow code talkers and wondered whether my face was as tight as theirs. A couple made jokes in Navajo, ribbing the rest of us. The laughter was muted.

The 2d Division Marines and we late-arriving 1st Division Marines were briefed on what to expect in the water and on the island when we landed. I promised myself I would be brave. But the air vibrated with apprehension.

A chaplain addressed us, reciting a blessing. I held the small buckskin medicine bag my father had sent and said my own silent prayer.
Give me courage. Let me make my country proud. Please protect me. Let me live to walk in beauty.
Around me the other Navajos seemed to be doing the same, each hoping to “walk in beauty” again in their native homes in Arizona and New Mexico.

After the chaplain spoke, a high-ranking officer—either a colonel or a general, I can't remember which—stepped up to address us. I nodded at Roy Begay,
⁷
my partner for the landing, and tried to smile. My tall friend, a skinny frame masking his strength, smiled back, but his expression looked forced. Though we'd been friends since boarding school, I had never seen good-humored Roy look so scared.

The officer talked straight. “I hate to say this,” he said, “but I guess we all know that some of you will not return from this battle. Some of you will never see your families again.” He cleared his throat, hesitating. Then his voice took on strength and determination. “Always remember, you are defending both your country and your families. The Japanese attacked your land, your home. And now you will make your country proud.”

Despite the peril we faced, the officer then tried to put us at ease, tried to help us understand what lay ahead on Guadalcanal. He spoke like a father talking to his son. “It's okay to be scared,” he told us. “It would be foolish not to be scared. And you men are anything but fools.” He hesitated again. “Just remember your training.”

We all nodded.

I can do this,
I thought. I pinched some corn pollen from my medicine bag, touched my tongue, my head, and gestured to the east, south, west, and north, then tucked the bag back into the pants pocket of my fatigues.

When the officer stopped speaking, I walked off by myself. One of my buddies called my name, but I kept walking, pretending not to hear. I thought about my father and grandparents, my younger sister, Dora. I pictured the dazzling sun of New Mexico and wished I could feel its dry warmth baking my skin. I thought of the air there, so pure and clear. I whispered a prayer of beauty: