The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II

An updated edition of a popular study of the Comanche Code Talkers of WWII.

Among the Allied troops who came ashore in Normandy on D-Day were thirteen Comanches in the 4th Infantry Division's 4th Signal Company. Under German fire they laid communications lines and sent messages in a form never before heard in Europe—coded Comanche. For the rest of World War II, the Comanche Code Talkers played a vital role transmitting orders in a code the Germans never broke. Drawing on interviews with surviving members of the unit, their training officer, and fellow soldiers, as well as archival records, William C. Meadows traces the Comanche Code Talkers from recruitment and training through wartime service and into their postwar lives. He also places their story within the broader history of Native American code talking in the world wars, comparing the Comanche program with the better-known Navajo Code Talkers and examining the military's use of Native languages for secure communication.

This twenty-fifth anniversary edition adds a new chapter and photographs documenting long-overdue recognition for the Comanche Code Talkers, in the form of congressional medals, museum exhibits, films, and memorials, along with updates in several areas that clarify the development of code talking, add key details of the unit's history, and highlight the enduring legacy of these soldiers and their once-secret contribution to Allied victory.