FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The language he once was punished for speaking in school became Chester Nez’s primary weapon in World War II.
Before hundreds of men from the Navajo Nation became Code Talkers, Nez and 28 others were recruited to develop a code based on the then-unwritten Navajo language. Locked in a room for 13 weeks, they came up with an initial glossary of more than 200 terms using Navajo words for red soil, war chief, braided hair and hummingbird, for example, and an alphabet.
Nez never tired of telling the story to highlight his pride in having served his country and stress the importance of preserving the Navajo language. The 93-year-old died Wednesday morning of kidney failure with plenty of appearances still scheduled, said Judy Avila, who helped Nez publish his memoirs. He was the last of the original group of 29 Navajo Code Talkers.
“It’s one of the greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during World War II,” Nez told The Associated Press in 2009. “We’re very proud of it.”
Navajo President Ben Shelly ordered flags lowered across the reservation in honor of Nez from sunrise today to sunset Sunday.
Nez was in 10th grade when he lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, not knowing he would become part of an elite group of Code Talkers. He wondered whether the code would work since the Japanese were skilled code breakers.
Few non-Navajos spoke the Navajo language, and even those who did couldn’t decipher the code. It proved impenetrable. The Navajos trained in radio communications were walking copies of it. Each message read aloud by a Code Talker immediately was destroyed.
“The Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did,” Nez said in the AP interview.
For years, Nez’s family and friends knew only that he fought the Japanese during World War II.
Nez was eager to tell his family more about his role as a Code Talker, Avila said, but he couldn’t. Their mission wasn’t declassified until 1968.
The accolades came much later. The original group received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001 and Nez often joked about pawning his.
