If Chester Nez dared to use his Navajo language in school, punishment was swift. He had to scrub his tongue with a toothbrush and wash out his mouth with bitter soap.

So he was interested when Marine recruiters showed up in 1942, seeking young men like him who knew both English and Navajo.

That day, four months after Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, Nez helped form an elite, top-secret group that became known as the Navajo code talkers. Using the Navajo language, they developed an unbreakable military communications code. Then, they risked their lives on battlefields across the Pacific to send and decode messages critical to America and its allies in World War II.

He didn't have to volunteer - barred from voting, Native Americans were barely considered citizens. But Nez's pride in his people spoke louder than years of rejection. "I reminded myself that my Navajo people had always been warriors, protectors," he wrote years later. "In that there was honor. I would concentrate on being a warrior, on protecting my homeland."

"To The Top Of The Hill"

Nez, the last of the original 29 code talkers, died Wednesday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was 93 and had kidney failure, said Judith Avila, who helped Nez write "Code Talker," his 2011 account of his wartime experiences.

In 2001 Nez received the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' highest civilian honor.

One of five children, Nez was born in 1921 in Two Wells, New Mexico. His mother died when he was about 3. When he was about 9, his struggling father packed him off to government boarding schools to learn English and other skills that might help him succeed among whites.

The Marines showed up at his high school in Tuba City, Arizona, in the spring of 1942. The recruiters did not say why they needed Navajos, but the promise of adventure appealed to the teenager.

"The Navajo feeling is to go to the top of the hill and see what's on the other side," he said in 2001.

Nez left immediately for basic training at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. After boot camp, he and the other 28 Navajos chosen for the project were sent to nearby Camp Elliott. It was there that they learned just how challenging their assignment would be.

Developing A Complicated Code

The Japanese had already broken every code used by the Allies. As a way to outwit them, Philip Johnston, a World War I veteran who had grown up on a Navajo reservation, proposed using the Navajo language as the basis for a new code. Top military officials figured it was worth a try.

In many respects, Navajo was perfect for the task: It had no written form, its grammar was complicated and it featured unusual sounds that added another layer of difficulty.

For 13 weeks, Nez and the others were confined to a room at the base where they were instructed to come up with words to represent the letters A to Z, as well as a code for military terms. At first "everybody thought we'd never make it," Nez recalled. "It seemed impossible because even among ourselves, we didn't agree on all the right Navajo words."

The code finally emerged, however.

"Wol-la-chee," the Navajo word for "ant," represented A, "na-hash-chid," the word for "badger," was B, "moasi," the word for "cat," was C, and so on. For key military words, they relied on easy-to-remember images. So "a-ye-shi," the word for "eggs," for example, meant "bombs." "Ni-ma-si," or "potatoes," meant "grenades."

Once they agreed on the code, they began to practice it. Soon, they were demonstrating great speed and accuracy. Messages that had taken 30 minutes to code and decode using other systems were translated and deciphered - decoded - in 20 seconds by the Navajo code talkers.

His First Message In Battle

The first message Nez sent was at Guadalcanal in November 1942: "Enemy machine gun next on your right. Destroy." The Allied forces blasted the target.

After Guadalcanal, Nez never stopped moving. He was at the Battle of Bougainville in New Guinea in November 1943, Guam in July 1944 and Peleliu and Angaur in September 1944, sending and receiving messages. The code talkers were so vital to the war effort that they were not permitted leaves.

Ultimately 400 Navajos served as code talkers. They were vitally important to the campaign on Iwo Jima, sending and decoding 800 messages without error in the first 48 hours of the operation. "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima," according to a memo by Major Howard Conner, a 5th Marine Division signal officer.

"I worried every day that I might make an error that cost American lives," Nez told CNN a few years ago. "But our code was the only code in modern warfare that was never broken. The Japanese tried, but they couldn't decipher it. Not even another Navajo could decipher it if he wasn't a code talker." ]]>