Code Talker

by Joseph Bruchac

  One of the white guys in my company yelled over to me from where he was pinned down by enemy fire on the north slope of Motoyama, a ridge in clear view of Suribachi.

  “Hey Chief,” he shouted, “they raised the Stars and Stripes. It’s over, it’s all over now.”

  “Not here,” I yelled back to him, ducking as Japanese bullets whizzed over my head.

  Teddy Draper was the code talker farthest up the slope of Mount Suribachi. He couldn’t see that flag, either, but his sergeant told him to send the message. So Teddy was the one who first spoke the words in our code, radioing back to General Smith at his command post on the beach. It was a long message because many of the words, such as Suribachi, had to be spelled out.

  Ashdla-ma-as-tso-si tse-nihl gah tkin neeshch’íí dzeh Ashi-hi, Tkin Tsa-a Ma’ii A-Kha: Belasana Be Mósí. Bi-tsan-dehn ah-ja d-ah naaki naaki tseebii Dzeh Nakia, taa has-clish-nih Táá táí Béésh tigai Lin Klizzie dibeh mósí lin gah tkin ah-jah dah-nas-tsa klesh has-clish-nih gah wóláchíí yeh-hes dibeh ah-nah be-No-da-ih Dibeh Ma’ii ah-jad tsénit klizzie do ye-zhe-al-tsisi-gi Klesh Ah-jah Bi-so-dih Bi-so-dih Tse-noihl neeznaa naaki nos-bas.

  To: 5th Marine Division, Info: ADC

  From: LT 228 E Company, Third Platoon

  First Lieutenant H. G. Schrier’s platoon raised U.S. flag and secured Mount Suribachi at 1020.

  All over the beachhead people greeted the news with cheers and shouts. Having that American flag go up was like New Year’s Eve. Some men were so moved that they cried. People were ringing bells, blowing whistles, and sounding horns from the boats. On the beach where so many had died, a man dressed just like every other Marine got that message and nodded his head. That man knew how hard the other armed forces had tried to terminate the Marines Corps, even while we did the hardest jobs on those islands.

  “This means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years,” that man said. He was James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy, and he was standing right next to General Howling Mad Smith and two admirals. As far as they were concerned, we had won. But for those of us Marines who were still in the thick of it, the fight for Iwo Jima was far from over.

  During that struggle to take Suribachi, three more of our Navajo code talkers ended their war. Paul Kinlahcheeny. Sam Morgan. Willie Notah. When Paul was hit by machine gun fire and died, he called out to Jimmie Gleason, the other Navajo with him.

  “Tell my folks,” were Paul’s last words.

  Jimmie got into a foxhole, but was trapped in the crossfire. His ankle had been shattered. He lay there for two days before anyone found him. He ended up losing his leg just below the knee. Jimmy survived to go home, even though the Gallup Independent reported that he had been killed in action.

  Mount Suribachi was just the southern tip of Iwo Jima, but capturing it meant that we were on our way to winning. Even the Japanese knew they were going to be defeated when they lost their stronghold. I learned later that many of the enemy soldiers wanted to give up, but were too ashamed to surrender or too afraid of their officers. That was why they fought on until almost every one of the 20,000 Japanese soldiers was dead. Our victory was also purchased at an awful cost in American casualties: 6,821 Marines were killed and another 19,207 were wounded.

  During the taking of Iwo Jima, I lost some of my white buddies, too. I have not said enough about how many of the white men who fought in the Pacific became my pals. I had many friends—too many friends. I say “too many” because having a lot of friends during war can be a painful thing. It is not like having friends here at home in peacetime. If you have a good buddy, grand-children, do you not look forward to seeing him when each new day dawns? If you have many friends, your life is full. When you are young and are living in peace, it seems as if your friends will always be there with you.

  It is different in war. Another friend is another person you might lose at any instant. Each new day, each minute, may be the last one when you will see your friend. That guy who shared a canteen of water with you, who teased you about your fear of snakes, or showed you pictures of his mother and father, can vanish in one moment as brief and shocking as a flash of lightning.

  It was March 4, before dawn. Three weeks after the flag-raising on Suribachi. It had been a cold, rainy night.

  “Hey, Chief,” the man next to me on my left said, his helmet dripping with water. “Did y’all do another one of them rain dances?”

  It did almost seem as if we Marines were rainmakers. Wherever we went in the Pacific campaign—Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Guam, Pavavu . . . the rain always seemed to follow us. It was always the same. But there was no confusing where we were now. That harsh odor of Iwo Jima’s sulphur smoke was always with us. Imagine the smell that comes just when you strike a match and then think of it filling the air all the time. That is how it was.

  Our objective was a place called Hill 362, southwest of Motoyama Village. Although the sun had not risen, we could see it clearly ahead. Harassing fire had been trained on it all night. It was lit up by white phosphorous bursts. Then the shelling stopped. It was 0500, time to move silently through the dark. We were not to fire our weapons until fired upon. That was an easy order for me to observe, grandchildren. I was always so busy with my radio equipment that firing a weapon was the last thing I could do.

  As soon as the first light of the sun struck us, so did the enemy. We were raked by fire from our flanks, from the front, and even from the rear. I heard a cry from that man on my left and turned to see my friend Georgia Boy holding his own throat. Blood was spurting through his fingers, and his helmet had been knocked off. A neck wound is bad. The big arteries there have so much pressure that all the blood in your body can be pumped out in a few minutes.

  Someone was yelling for a medic. It took me a moment to realize that the person was yelling in Navajo.

  “Azee’neikáhí.”

  Then I realized I was the one doing the yelling as I pressed my hands down onto Georgia Boy’s neck, trying to stem the flow of blood. A corpsman with the small circle of his profession on his helmet knelt by my side. In the Pacific war, our medics did not wear red crosses. The Japanese didn’t observe the usual rules of warfare that forbade trying to kill medical personnel. A red cross was just a more visible target for a sniper.

  I moved aside as the medic took over. We had to keep moving. My radio was needed farther up front. Georgia Boy’s face was pale and his legs were trembling. It was the last I saw of him on Iwo Jima.

  On March 16, twenty-six days after D-day, organized resistance was declared at an end. There were still caves and isolated emplacements holding out, but the battle had been won. On March 25, we began withdrawing to head back to Guam. The final thing I remember seeing of Iwo Jima was the American flag still waving from the peak of Mount Suribachi as we sailed away.

  You have probably seen that picture taken of six Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi. It was published all over the world. You can see it here on this medal. In Washington, D.C., at the Marine Corps memorial, there is a big statue of those Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima.

  But if you remember my description of how Mount Suribachi was taken, you will realize that this flag was not the first one. Two hours after Mount Suribachi was captured, an Associated Press photographer named Joe Rosenthal decided to go up to the top of the mountain, even though everyone told him he was too late. He arrived just at the moment when that first flag was being taken down.

  “Colonel Johnson wants to keep this one for a souvenir,” he was told. “So we’re going to put up a bigger one.”

  As soon as the first flag was down, Joe Rosenthal began to take pictures of the Marines putting up that second one. One of those pictures became the most famous photograph from World War II. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian friend of mine from Arizona, is the one farthest on the very left. You can see him reaching for the flagpole but not quite touching it. He and the other five became famous because of that one photograph. It embarrassed some of them, because they all knew
it was a staged picture.

  I think that even though there was no fighting on top of Mount Suribachi at that time, those six men deserved the praise they were given. They were brave and fought hard. Three of them were killed not long after that photograph. The other three, including Ira, were shipped back to the States. Ira toured the country for the Marine Corps, promoting the sale of war bonds.

  When they made Ira into a celebrity, he didn’t feel comfortable about it. I think that’s one of the reasons he drank so much. Some of us, like Wilsie Bitsie and me, had been friends with Ira even before the war. So we Navajos saw a lot of Ira after he got back home, all of us being veterans and back in Arizona. All of us being Indians. Ira would tell us how he just couldn’t get the war out of his head. He kept seeing the men who had been wounded and hearing their voices. He didn’t like to look at that famous photo of himself raising the flag.

  “I wish you had been there with me in that picture,” he used to say to Wilsie and me. “It is so lonely being there forever without another Indian.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Okinawa

  Iwo Jima was the key. It opened the door to the invasion of Japan and the end of the Pacific War. B-29s from Guam and Saipan passed over Iwo Jima without being attacked. Dozens and dozens of planes used Sulphur Island as an emergency landing field on their way back from bombing Japan.

  On the islands of Japan, many people wished the war to end. There were plenty of people who hadn’t wanted their country to go to war with the United States. As more of their loved ones died on faraway islands, many Japanese people saw that nothing was possible but defeat. The Imperial Command, however, was still led by military men who refused to accept surrender. The war had to go on.

  So, once again, we code talkers took part in another invasion. About fifty of us were part of the operation. We were called Operation Iceberg. Our 1,600 ships were the largest armada in history, and the number of our troops was even bigger than the force that landed on the beaches of Normandy in Europe. I was now with the Sixth Division, made up of regiments from other disbanded divisions. This time we were to invade the island of Okinawa, even closer to Japan. The Okinawan people had always been peaceful and had no history of ever going to war. But when the Japanese took over their island, our enemies made it into another military fortress.

  Our carriers went first, sending planes against the Okinawan airfields. Many enemy aircraft were destroyed on the grounds, but others took off to attack our ships. Kamikaze planes fell out of the sky toward our carriers. Those swarms of small planes looked to me like wasps whose nest has been poked by a stick. Many were shot down and just as many fell into the sea without hitting any target. A lot of those planes were piloted by young men who’d never flown before. They were allowed to get drunk before taking off, since it would be their last drink.

  Too many of those planes did strike their targets. The Hornet and the Franklin were hit the hardest. Over 700 men died on the Franklin. I saw it burning right next to me as our invasion force steamed on. In addition to my Navajo buddies two of my white friends who had survived the other campaigns were there with me. Of course, one of them was Smitty, who was stuck to my side like a burr. Who was the other one?

  One of the greatest surprises I have ever had in my life came just after we left port for Okinawa. As I stood by the rail, a familiar drawling voice spoke up next to me.

  “Hey Chief, what y’all gonna do when y’all see one of them habu snakes? I hear they’s just a-crawlin’ all over Okinawa.”

  It was Georgia Boy. He had survived his wounds. There was a big bandage on his neck, but an even bigger smile on his face.

  I hugged him so hard that for once I was the one who lifted him off his feet and almost cracked his ribs. Then the deck shifted as the ship turned and we both almost went over the rail. Smitty, though, grabbed us and pulled us back. The three of us stood there laughing our heads off.

  “Why aren’t you dead, you good-for-nothing redneck?” Smitty said.

  “Can’t kill a cracker with just one little Jap bullet,” Georgia Boy answered, grinning.

  We weren’t the only ones grinning. The mood on board our ships was really good. Even Radio Tokyo, still broadcasting its usual mixture of American music, bold-faced lies, and threats, brought a smile to most people’s faces.

  This is the zero hour, boys. It is broadcast for all you American fighting men in the Pacific, particularly those standing off the shores of Okinawa because many of you will never hear another program. Here’s a nice number for you, “Going Home.” It’s nice work if you can get it.

  There was a time when ominous words like those from Tokyo Rose had made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Now those broadcasts just amused me. Most of us Marines were spending more time joking and talking about how the war had to end soon than worrying about the impending battle.

  “What are you going to do when you get home, Chief?” Smitty asked me.

  “He’s gonna eat mutton,” Georgia Boy said, chuckling.

  “Me,” Smitty said, “I’m going back to college. That G.I. Bill is going to give me a free education.”

  I didn’t answer them. Much as I wanted to go home, deep in my heart it was still hard for me to believe that the war was almost over. Okinawa still lay ahead of us, and then the other islands of Japan.

  April 1 was landing day on Okinawa. It was also Easter Sunday. One hundred fifty-four thousand of us G.I.s and Marines were poised to hit the Hagushi beaches. As I climbed into the boat, my stomach felt tight as a drum. Would this be like it was on Iwo Jima? Once again, as the boat powered through the waves, there was no enemy fire at all. All that greeted me as I stepped out onto the rocky shore was a gentle wind. I dreaded what would happen next. Would it be another ambush as soon as enough of us were ashore? But as more and more men came out of the water there was still no resistance at all. Hour after hour passed. The only thing that broke the quiet was the roar of amphibious tanks. Before long, all of us were calling that day by a new name.

  “This ain’t landing day,” Georgia Boy said as we sat watching more and more troops and equipment follow us up onto the beach. “This here is love day. Taking this here place gonna be as easy for us as it was for mah Yankees to win the series in ’43.”

  “Hey, Georgia Boy,” Smitty said, “you ever hear this song?” Then he began whistling “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

  It made us all chuckle, even Georgia Boy. That past October, the Yankees had not even made it to the World Series. It turned out to be a Missouri special, with the St. Louis Cardinals winning in four over the St. Louis Browns.

  By nightfall, we’d already reached objectives that were supposed to have taken days. Bulldozers were clearing away the wreckage of Japanese planes on Yontan airfield. It all seemed too easy. And it was.

  On April 8 we hit Kakazu Ridge. The Japanese soldiers had pulled back and dug in to wait for us. Their first line of defense was a long rocky ridge, heavily fortified, but so camouflaged that we didn’t know it was there. Their plan was to hold us off at their defense lines, to be the rock that would break the sword of our attack. The Japanese Imperial general headquarters wanted to bleed us white. They hoped that so many Americans would die we’d lose heart and stop our attacks. That was the idea of one of their best military men, General Ushijima, and it almost worked.

  I don’t mean that we almost gave up, but it took a long time and we lost so many good men. Our battle for Okinawa was some of the bloodiest fighting in the war. It was made even harder because there were no good roads and the island was crossed by ranges of hills running from east to west. We had to fight from one ridge to the next. It seemed it would never end.

  I have spoken so much about other battles I saw, that I will say little more about Okinawa than that it took us eighty-three days. The island was finally declared secure on June 2, 1945. On that same day, General Ushijima committed suicide. Twelve thousand Americans were dead or missing. Thirty-six of our smaller ships had
been sunk by the kamikazes and about four hundred more had been damaged by the attacks. The Japanese had lost 3,600 airplanes and 110,000 men. Eighty thousand Okinawan civilians also died in the battles. Through it all our Navajo code was used to send and receive messages. We Navajos had helped a lot, but rather than feeling glad about it, I had a great heaviness in my heart.

  If it cost this much to take just one small island, invading the big islands of Japan would be too terrible to imagine. Our commanders now estimated there’d be at least one million American casualties. No one knew how many Japanese soldiers and civilians would die. Thousands of kamikaze planes, suicide boats, human torpedoes, and midget submarines had been prepared by our enemies. Tens of millions of Japanese would give their lives to defend their homeland. All our intelligence said that the Japanese military was still not ready to quit, even though the ordinary people were desperate for peace.

  Although I did not know it at the time, grandchildren, all through the war many Japanese citizens were imprisoned or murdered because they spoke out against it. There was a powerful military organization called the Thought Police in Japan. If you were suspected of even thinking about criticizing the government, you’d be taken away by the Thought Police. It was also hard for the Japanese to speak up because they believed that their emperor was a god, the son of the Sun God. They had to do what they were told because their emperor could do no wrong.

  Some brave Japanese people tried to let their emperor know how they felt. There were some men whose sons had died during the war who chose a certain way to tell their emperor there had been enough sacrifice. They did so through a sacrifice of their own. First it was only a few, but by the last year of the war, there were many. Each grieving father sent a small package, carefully wrapped, to the Imperial palace. None of those packages ever reached the emperor. They were quickly disposed of by men who’d been appointed to keep all bad news from reaching Emperor Hirohito. Each package contained the sender’s right index finger.