Its translation is “crazy white man.” During CombatCharles Chibitty’s unit was among those that assaulted the beaches at Normandy on D-Day during the largest amphibious landing in history. Perhaps the most descriptive Comanche word was “posah-tai-vo,” their name for Adolph Hitler. The heavy bombers dropping bombs resembled a fish’s belly being cut open and eggs falling out. The hard shell of a tank reminded them of turtles, so the Comanche word for turtle meant tank. So, they combined the words for gun and sewing machine to signify a machine gun. The rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun reminded the Comanches of a sewing machine. The solution the Code Talkers devised was to put numbers after the word tugawee to designate the caliber of the gun. For example, “tugawee” means gun in Comanche, but it could mean any type of gun. They quickly learned to combine familiar words to give new meanings. The Comanches had some initial problems with English words that had no equivalent in their language. Ironically, it was his native tongue that was responsible for Chibitty and other tribal members being recruited into an elite World War II Army unit. “They would run us through a belt line or make us wax floors,” Chibitty recalled. They came to be known as Code Talkers, and they made crucial contributions to the Allied victory in Europe.Īs a boy attending a boarding school, Charles Chibitty was punished for speaking the Comanche language. Among the earliest volunteers was a small group of Comanche Native Americans from the Lawton, Oklahoma, area, who were selected for special duty by the U.S. By the end of World War II, approximately 25,000 Native Americans had served in the military. By the spring of 1942, 547 Native Americans had volunteered for duty. Even America’s most isolated minority, the Native Americans, was thrust into the new era. It marked the entry of America into the Second World War, and every American citizen was affected in some way. The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a “day that will live in infamy,” as proclaimed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
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