History and Legacy of Cherokee Code Talkers: George Adair
Written by Travis Noland, Cherokee Nation
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Recent stories and popular media, such as the 2002 movie “Windtalkers,” have shed light on the roles some Native Americans have played during wartime using tribal languages to baffle the enemy. A number of Navajo and Choctaw “code talkers” have been celebrated as heroes, but most people are not aware that Cherokee soldiers also used their language as a way to both, convey and conceal critical information on the battlefield. One such soldier was Cherokee Nation citizen George Adair.
BIRTH: 24 May 1887
DEATH: 8 Oct 1947 (Aged 60)
BURIAL: Nowata Memorial Cemetery, Nowata, Nowata County, Oklahoma
Born in Braggs, Okla., May 24, 1887, Adair enlisted in the U.S. Army in September of 1917. After his basic training, Adair was assigned to the 36th Division and sent to the line in France in World War I. Adair, along with other Cherokees, was put in the telephone service. It was those Cherokee soldiers’ responsibility to receive and transmit crucial orders in our Cherokee language. Cherokee and other tribal languages were alien to the enemies of the Central Powers, rendering them unable to decipher the American communications spoken in those languages. Unfortunately, only Adair’s name remains known among the Cherokee who performed code talking services.
Historians say it is impossible to know how many Allies’ lives were saved thanks to the Cherokee and other Native code talkers in both World War I and World War II.
According to research conducted by the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, more than 12,000 American Indians, including hundreds of Cherokees, served in World War I—about 25 percent of the male American Indian population at that time. The MAI’s research also showed that during World War II, when the total American Indian population was less than 350,000, an estimated 44,000 American Indian men and women served. Some estimates show that as many as 40 Cherokees may have been called upon to act as code talkers during the two wars.
Allen says the code talkers’ history is part of the bigger picture of Cherokees serving and protecting their country that goes back decades, perhaps even centuries.
