The Forgotten WWI Choctaw Code Talkers

Everyone knows the story of the Navajo Code Talkers in World War II. Far fewer know that the first Native American code talkers helped change the course of a war more than two decades earlier.

In this episode of History Shorts, we uncover the extraordinary story of the Choctaw Code Talkers during the final weeks of World War I. In October 1918, with German forces intercepting American communications and deciphering military codes, U.S. commanders faced a dangerous intelligence crisis. The solution came unexpectedly when an officer overheard two Choctaw soldiers speaking their native language—a language virtually un...