One of last Navajo Code Talkers, Samuel Sandoval, dies; just 3 remain

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 One of last Navajo Code Talkers, Samuel Sandoval, dies; just 3 remain

Samuel Sandoval, a Navajo Code Talker and Marine Corps veteran who served in World War II. (Navajo Nation/Released)
AUGUST 02, 2022 LIZ GEORGE
 
Samuel Sandoval, one of the last living Navajo Code Talkers from World War II, died on Friday at a hospital in Shiprock, New Mexico. According to the Navajo Nation, there were 418 Code Talkers who served during the war.

Sandoval’s wife, Malula, told The Associated Press that her husband passed away at the age of 98. Sandoval was one of four remaining Navajos who used their language to transmit messages in code during World War II.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez shared a photo of Sandoval on Twitter, and wrote, “The life of Navajo Code Talker Samuel Sandoval remembered and honored by the Navajo People.”

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/one-of-last-navajo-code-talkers-samuel-sandoval-dies-just-3-remain/

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[PeteS in CA]

I don't know what thinking went into choosing Navajo for this task - maybe it was "just" the number of Navajo speakers at the time - but the language family roots for Navajo are so uncertain that it's almost an "isolate" (linguist-speak for "We don't know where in Hades this language came from"). IOW, it was basically 99.9999...% certain that neither the Japanese nor the Germans would have even one person with knowledge of the Navajo language.