02/26/2026
It is with profound sorrow that we bid farewell to Chester Nez, the last of the first 29 Navajo men who created a code from their language that stumped the Japanese in World War II, has passed away of kidney failure. With his passing, a sacred voice of history falls silent, and the world grows heavier with the weight of what has been lost.🕊️🇺🇸
Born in 1921 in New Mexico, At the age of 16, he was sent to a federal government boarding school, where he faced strict assimilation policies, students were often forbidden to speak Navajo, wear traditional clothing, or practice cultural rituals. Despite these challenges, Nez maintained his cultural identity and resilience, which would later become central to his role in WWII.
In 1942, at the age of 21, Nez was recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps to become one of the first Navajo Code Talkers. Along with 28 other Navajo men, he helped develop a secret code based entirely on the Navajo language. What made it extraordinary was that it was both fast and unbreakable: even other Navajo speakers could not easily understand it without the code key.
The code included Navajo words representing military terms, such as using the word for “turtle” to mean “tank” or “chicken hawk” for a dive bomber. It was used extensively in the Pacific Theater, including critical battles like Iwo Jima, to transmit messages that enemy forces could not decipher. Nez and his fellow code talkers worked under dangerous combat conditions, often at the front lines, risking their lives to ensure communication security.