Navajo Code Talker John Kinsel Sr., among the last of the famed World War II messengers, is dead at 107.
Navajo Nation officials in Window Rock announced Kinsel's death on Saturday. Tribal President Buu Nygren has ordered all flags on the reservation to be flown at half-staff until Oct. 27 at sunset to honor Kinsel. "Mr. Kinsel was a Marine who bravely and selflessly fought for all of us in the most terrifying circumstances with the greatest responsibility as a Navajo Code Talker," Nygren said in a statement Sunday. With Kinsel's death, only two original Navajo Code Talkers are still alive: Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay.
The Code Talkers sent thousands of messages on Japanese movements, and their encryption system—the unwritten Navajo language—confounded enemy codebreakers until the end of the war. They participated in every assaults the Marines led in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including those at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.
From the stories of the last Navajo Code Talkers:
The idea for using the Navajo language as a military code came from Philip Johnston in 1942. He was a World War I veteran and the son of a missionary who lived on the Navajo Nation. According to the National Archives and Records, Johnston got the idea after reading an article that talked about how the Army used Native American soldiers as signalmen during training maneuvers.
His experience growing up with Navajo language and culture is what led him to suggest it be used as a military code, noting that the language was unknown among other tribes and the public. Johnston went to the Naval Office in Los Angeles, California, and was referred to Major James E. Jones at Camp Elliot in San Diego. Jones was skeptical about the idea until Johnston spoke a few Navajo words to him and was asked to do a trial run with Navajo people.
Many learned of the Code Talkers thanks to the John Woo movie in 2002:
Previously: RIP Arthur Hubbard, Navajo code talker and Arizona State Senator
