These WWI Choctaw soldiers created an unbreakable code that helped end the war in just 24 hours

The Choctaw Code Talkers of WWI

The Germans had cracked every Allied code in World War I until October 1918. That’s when nineteen Choctaw soldiers started speaking their native language over military phone lines, creating terms like "big gun" for artillery. The enemy couldn’t understand a single word. Their secret weapon helped break German lines and end the war within weeks. Here’s how it happened.

Germans had cracked every code

By October 1918, German forces had turned Allied communications into an open book.

They spoke excellent English, broke American codes, and tapped telephone wires lying across recently abandoned territory.

German patrols captured one in four Allied message runners. American commanders needed secure communications, but everything they tried failed.

Bloor overheard something Germans couldn’t

Colonel Alfred Bloor was walking through his 142nd Infantry camp when he heard two soldiers talking.

Solomon Lewis and Bennington Mitchell Bobb were speaking Choctaw, and Bloor couldn’t understand a word.

The conversation gave him an idea: if he couldn’t follow their language, neither could German eavesdroppers.

The regiment held a linguistic goldmine

Bloor discovered his unit contained Native Americans from twenty-six different tribes.

Most spoke languages that had never been written down, making them impossible for outsiders to learn.

Eight Choctaw soldiers could speak fluently with each other. Two Native American officers understood several dialects and could help coordinate the system.

Choctaw soldiers became living cipher machines

Bloor placed one Choctaw speaker at each command post. Orders went from English to Choctaw to English again.

The colonel would tell one soldier the message in English, who translated it into Choctaw for transmission.

Another Choctaw speaker received the message and translated it back. Germans could listen all they wanted.

October 26 brought the first test

That night, Bloor ordered two companies to withdraw from Chufilly to Chardeny using only Choctaw communications.

The dangerous movement required perfect timing and coordination. American troops pulled back smoothly while German listeners had no idea orders were flowing across the telephone lines.

The test worked perfectly.

Germans admitted they were stumped

Captured German officers later told interrogators they were completely baffled by the strange language coming through their listening posts.

After four years of successful eavesdropping, they suddenly couldn’t understand anything. American artillery and infantry attacks began catching German defenders completely off guard because they couldn’t intercept the preparations.

Forest Ferme needed perfect coordination

The next day, Bloor used his Choctaw speakers to coordinate the assault on Forest Ferme, a heavily fortified German stronghold overlooking the Aisne River.

French forces had tried twice to take the position and failed. American commanders planned a complex attack with precise timing between artillery and infantry.

The fortress fell in hours

On October 28, Choctaw code talkers coordinated the entire assault.

Their unbreakable communications allowed American forces to time a walking artillery barrage that caught defenders by surprise.

German resistance collapsed quickly, and the position fell. The 142nd Regiment was pulled from the front lines after their stunning success.

Military words needed Choctaw translations

Nineteen Choctaw soldiers completed formal training to expand their system.

Military terms that didn’t exist in their language became creative substitutions: “big gun” for artillery, “little gun shoot fast” for machine guns, “scalps” for casualties.

They turned “regiment” into “tribe” and “2nd Battalion” into “two grains of corn.”

The war ended too soon

The Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, before the trained code talkers could return to combat.

These Choctaw volunteers had become America’s first military code talkers, even though they wouldn’t become U.S. citizens until 1924.

Their breakthrough inspired the famous Navajo code talkers of World War II. Congress awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal in 2008.

Visiting The National WWI Museum and Memorial

America’s official WWI Museum in Kansas City holds the world’s largest WWI collection. You can experience the Choctaw Code Talkers story through a 3D virtual reality experience that costs an extra $5.

The main gallery has a display case showing weapons and artifacts from the Oklahoma Choctaw soldiers. The museum completed major renovations in 2025 with new interactive exhibits bringing WWI stories to life.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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