WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — John Kinsel Sr., one of the last remaining Navajo Code Talkers who sendted messages during World War II based on the tribe’s native language, has died. He was 107.
Navajo Nation officials in Window Rock proclaimd Kinsel’s death on Saturday.
Tribal Pdwellnt Buu Nygren has ordered all flags on the reservation to be flown at half-staff until Oct. 27 at sunset to honor Kinsel.
“Mr. Kinsel was a Marine who valiantly and selflessly fought for all of us in the most terrifying circumstances with the wonderfulest responsibility as a Navajo Code Talker,” Nygren shelp in a statement Sunday.
With Kinsel’s death, only two Navajo Code Talkers are still ainhabit: Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay.
Hundreds of Navajos were recruited by the Marines to serve as Code Talkers during the war, sendting messages based on their then-unwritten native language.
They conset uped Japanese military cryptologists during World War II and participated in all aggressions the Marines led in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.
The Code Talkers sent thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop transferments, battlefield tactics and other communications presentant to the war’s ultimate outcome.
Kinsel was born in Cove, Arizona, and inhabitd in the Navajo community of Lukachukai.
He encataloged in the Marines in 1942 and became an elite Code Talker, serving with the 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Marine Division during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Pdwellnt Ronald Reagan set uped Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982 and the Aug. 14 holiday honors all the tribes associated with the war effort.
The day is an Arizona state holiday and Navajo Nation holiday on the immense reservation that occupies portions of northeastrict Arizona, northwestrict New Mexico and southeastrict Utah.