Code Talker

"I said, 'Dad, what's all this about you being a code talker?' He said, 'Can't say nothing. Top secret'."
"I said 'C'mon, I just heard it on CKON'!"
"Dad would say, 'He's full of s---, [actor John Wayne: 'Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes'] We'd just hear a twig snap and everyone would open fire'."
"We [aboriginal children] went to Catholic schools, and they beat it [original language] out of us. When we were four or five years old, we spoke Indian. Then we went to school and we could no longer speak it."
"They used our language [during the war], then they took it from us."
Raymond Oakes, resident of Akwesasne, Quebec

Louis Levi Oakes, a Mohawk veteran from Akwesasne, was honoured by the Assembly of First Nations for his contributions as an Indigenous code talker during the Second World War. (CPAC)

Code talkers, a coterie of North American Indians who were recruited during war-time by the U.S. military, to use their native languages to convey coded messages, were instructed firmly that they must never speak to anyone of their top-secret role in combating the enemy. During the First World War the U.S. used Native American code talkers for the first time. At that time most of those recruited were Choctaw Indians using tribal language to transmit orders and other vital communications over telephone lines.

Then in 1940 the U.S. military began their recruitment of Comanches, Choctaws, Hopis, Cherokees, Mohawks and others to this top secret communications program. Why use native speakers to convey orders? Because, according to tests undertaken by the U.S. marines, code talkers were faster and easier in practise than were encryption machines. The U.S. Marine Corps began their own communications program in 1941, recruiting Navajo from the U.S. Southwest, acquiring the services of over 400 Navajo code talkers to serve exclusively with the Marines.

Neither the Japanese nor the German military communications experts were ever able to break the code, those tribal languages where messages were translated into 'code', which is to say whatever native language of the tribe members who were a functional part of the communications group for the U.S. military. Some messages made use of tribal words representing letters, numbers or other specific code words. And while the Germans and the Japanese undertook studying Native American languages, Navajo stymied them completely.

Canada began its own recruitment of code talkers. A Metis from Saskatchewan was one of a few fluent Cree speakers serving Canada during the Second World War. He was assigned to the U.S. Eighth Air Force to transmit radio messages in Cree. In Canada the code talking program was declassified in 1963, and in the United States, five years later. Levi Oakes, 96, was loathe to speak of his role as a code talker even when he was legally free to do so. Born in Akwesasne, he joined the U.S. army at 18 to serve in the Philippines, New Guinea and the South Pacific.

Akwesasne produced 17 code talkers who spoke Mohawk, among the 33 tribal languages spoken by code talkers. Levi was honourably discharged from the military in 1946 and began work as an iron worker in Buffalo and for the New York state highway department. Awarded the American Silver Star for courage during the war, in 2015 he and other Mohawk code talkers received the Congressional Silver Medal. He is the last surviving Second World War Mohawk code talker.

This week 96-year-old Levi Oakes was honoured at a special chiefs assembly of the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa. Later on that same day he was recognized by Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

"He's an example of someone who laid it all on the line and used his language to ensure that we all live in peace and ensured Allied victory.""In Canada, we've done a pretty poor job of acknowledging our Indigenous veterans. If you compare to our American allies they seem to do a much better symbolic job of acknowledging them. The use of code talking during the war saved lives and a shared Allied victory. For me, that's super important."
Marc Miller, parliamentary secretary, minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations

Louis Levi Oakes enlisted in the United States Army at the age of 18. He served for six years, including as a code talker in South Pacific theatres during the Second World War. (Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe)