Carson City’s Code-Talker: Karl Kee Crawford. . . .
National Navajo Code Talkers Day is August 14th – and you might be surprised to learn that one of these special veterans once lived right here in Carson City, Nevada.
Karl Kee Crawford was born on April 12, 1918 on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. Like many Native American youth of that time, Karl was sent away to boarding school, attending the Phoenix Indian School more than 250 miles from his home, on the opposite side of the state. He may not technically have been forced to attend. But alternative educational options were few, and boarding schools offered food, housing, and job training. Culturally, however, they could be harsh for students raised in Navajo families. Studies were conducted strictly in English, and students were actively discouraged from speaking their native language as a way to promote assimilatation into “mainstream” American society.
Karl served in the National Guard from 1937 to 1939, and he officially graduated that same year from the Phoenix Indian School at age 21, finding work as a plumber in Sacramento. But then the Second World War broke out. Karl joined the U.S. Marine Corps on October 7, 1942 at San Francisco, and was sent to boot camp at Camp Elliott in San Diego.
Somehow or other, an officer recognized Karl’s Navajo fluency. Karl recalled hearing his name called out as he was working in the mess hall, thinking somehow he must be in trouble. Instead, he was offered a new job.
Ironically, the very language Karl had been discouraged from speaking as a child was now in demand by the military. He was offered a chance to become a Code-Talker. He said yes.
Six weeks of specialized training followed. He learned the fine points of radio communication, and had to memorize a secret Navajo-based code. Words in Navajo (Diné) were assigned military meanings. Thus, “hummingbird” meant fighter plane, while “iron fish” was a submarine. In addition, English translations of certain Navajo words could be used to identify specific letters. The Navajo word for “ant,” for example, could be a coded representation for the letter A.
An extremely complex and nuanced language, Navajo made a perfect vehicle for covert communications. Fewer than 30 non-Navajos were reportedly able to speak it at the beginning of World War II, and the language had never been written down.
The spoken Navajo code required much less time for transmission and decoding than other forms of cryptography. Messages that might take 20 to 30 minutes to pass along using conventional coding could often be transmitted and decoded by the Code-Talkers in just a few minutes. It was also multi-layered enough to be utterly unbreakable. Even when the Japanese later captured a Navajo-speaker at Bataan, the prisoner was unable to figure out what the random-sounding combinations of Navajo words actually meant. The Japanese, it is said, were never able to decode a single word of the Navajo Code-Talker transmissions.
As one of approximately 375 Navajo Code-Talkers during World War II, Karl was assigned to communications for the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions, 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment, and sent to the Pacific theater. A heavy rotation of battle posts followed, across some of the toughest Pacific campaigns. These included Cape Gloucester, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Peleliu and Okinawa (the Ryukyu Islands). Karl’s work placed him among a relatively small group of Marines who served in nearly the entire Pacific theater, from the early campaigns through the final drive toward Japan.
Although we don’t know precisely what Karl did in each of those campaigns, in general, Code-Talkers helped coordinate troop movements, relayed artillery requests, coordinated troop movements and logistics, submitted casualty reports, and transmitted combat orders. Their work was essential to battlefield success; Marine Corps Major Howard Conner later said, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”
Karl’s 1st Marine Division was active in the 1943 Guadalcanal campaign, and its communications specialists would have continued assisting with troop movements even after the bulk of that combat ended. The 7th Marines spearheaded the landing at Cape Gloucester on December 26, 1943, and communications personnel would have connected regimental headquarters with battalion and division command.
As the fighting continued through January through March, 1944, Code Talkers would have transmitted orders and supply and artillery information while the regiment advanced through the jungles and heavy rain toward Japanese airfields.
Spring/summer 1944 saw the 1st Marine Division refitting and staging operations in the Southwest Pacific. On September 15, 1944, the division landed on Peleliu. This became one of its bloodiest battles, lasting far longer than expected, and resulting in thousands of casualties. Communications were critical for units pushing through the islands caves and ridges, and code-talkers likely worked long shifts transmitting combat reports, troop movements, requests for ammunition, and evacuation information. On April 1, 1945, the 1st Marine Division landed on Okinawa, and heavy fighting continued into June. Code-Talkers were especially valued in that location due to the likelihood that the Japanese would intercept radio traffic.
Even after Japan’s formal surrender on September 2, 1945, Crawford remained on active duty. Again, we can only speculate about his activities, but he likely assisted with communications for security and occupation operations.
Karl received an honorable discharge in 1946, after four long years with the military. He returned to his former profession, working as a plumber at various sites in Northern Nevada and Northern California. He married a Hopi woman and together they had four children, making their home in Carson City, Nevada. In later life Karl would live in Klamath, California, though he eventually moved back to Carson City, where his children lived.
It took a very long time for the Code-Talkers to be recognized for their incredible contributions to the war effort, in part because the program remained classified until 1968. And Karl rarely spoke about his service.
In August, 2002, Karl was awarded a Congressional silver medal of honor. The bottom of the medal bears a Navajo phrase. Translated, it reads: “The Navajo language was used to defeat the enemy.”
Karl passed away on July 31, 2005, at the age of 87, in Carson City, after a final battle — this time, with Parkinson’s disease. He is buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery. He left behind four children and 16 grandchildren. Immediately following his death, Nevada governor Kenny Guinn proclaimed August 10, 2005 a day of remembrance for Karl Kee Crawford.
There is a certain irony in Karl Crawford’s deliberate choice to use his Native language to serve the very country that had discouraged his speaking it in school. Yet for many Navajo and other Native people, military service was entirely consistent with a warrior’s duty to protect one’s people and homeland. And Karl and his fellow Code-Talkers took great pride in being able to contribute a skill to the war effort that no one else could offer, in a time of great national need.
This August 14th, on National Navajo Code-Talker Day, I hope you’ll remember him.