Choctaw Telephone Squad Comes Online at Forest Farm (26 OCT 1918)

Official Statements

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Between Oct. 26-27, 1918, the 71st Brigade, 36th Infantry Division, overran German hilltop defenses during the Battle of Forêt-Ferme (Forest Farm) in northeastern France. Critical to the successful surprise assault were eight Choctaw men in the 142nd Infantry Regiment who transmitted secure communications between the regimental command posts. The 36th Infantry Division arrived in France in the summer of 1918 and was placed under the operational control of the French Fourth Army for the Meuse-Argonne offensive.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “The division first saw combat Oct. 8-10 at the costly battle at Saint-Étienne. As the division advanced toward the Germans at the Aisne River, it desperately needed more secure means of communication. French and American troops were prone to reusing the abandoned German telephone lines for their own purposes, allowing the enemy to “listen in.” The alternatives were runners - too often killed before delivering their messages - or complicated codes that took too long to encode and decode.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “The unique solution adopted was to send messages in a Native American language unintelligible to the Germans. The division, formed from the merger of two Oklahoma and Texas National Guard units, had in its ranks about six hundred Native American soldiers representing more than thirteen tribes speaking twenty-six different languages and dialects. Nearly half these men were in Capt. Elijah W. Horner’s Company E, 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry. This included a large contingent of Oklahoma Choctaw fluent in both their native language and English.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Following the bloody fighting at Saint-Étienne, the 142nd Infantry commander, Col. Alfred W. Bloor, directed Captain Horner to pick eight of his Choctaw soldiers to become the “Choctaw Telephone Squad.” Two of these men - Pfc. Ben Carterby and Cpl. Pete Maytubby - were already stationed at regimental headquarters. Horner then placed two Choctaw at each of the regiment’s three battalion command posts: Cpls. Soloman Louis, James Edwards, and Calvin Wilson, Pfc. Mitchell Bobb, and Pvts. James Davenport and Noel Johnson.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Bobb sent the first Choctaw language test message via field telephone to Carterby, who successfully translated it for Colonel Bloor at headquarters. The Choctaw Telephone Squad was operating just in time for the 142nd Infantry to take part in the battle at Forest Farm. The 71st Brigade was directed to take a hilltop on the south side of the Aisne River from which elite elements of the Third Prussian Guard Division could fire on the Allies as they attempted to cross the river.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “The Choctaw passed numerous messages between the regimental and battalion command posts during the battle. On Oct. 26, they directed two endangered companies to safer positions, and the next day, they securely transmitted to all units the orders for the evening’s attack. The Americans were thus able to launch a surprise combined arms assault on the hilltop, killing or capturing all the enemy defenders. Following the battle, the 142nd Infantry was withdrawn to rest and prepare for the next offensive.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “The Choctaw Telephone Squad had been deemed so successful that Lt. Temple Black, a Cheyenne, was ordered to recruit three noncommissioned officers and another eighteen enlisted men for the squad. He put them through additional training and had them develop a coded vocabulary to account for English words with no equivalent in the Choctaw language, such as “many scouts” for patrol and “stone” for grenade.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “The squad never had a chance to use their new code, however, as the Nov. 11 armistice went into effect before they returned to the front. Although the Choctaw Telephone Squad members have been referred to as “code-talkers,” a May 1919 edition of Stars and Stripes observed, “The code was nothing more than Choctaw - plain, simple, old-fashioned, ordinary, catch-as-catch-can, everyday Choctaw.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “True, the Choctaw did not use a sophisticated code during the Battle of Forest Farm, but the language certainly stymied the Germans who, in later years, reportedly sent agents to the United States to learn more about the Native Americans. Nevertheless, the Choctaw and several other tribes would become even more renowned as “code-talkers” during World War II. (NOTE: The Choctaw Telephone Squad was not the first use of so-called Native American code talkers. That distinction is owned by the 1st Division’s Wisconsin Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) as early as June 1918.)”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Article by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian. New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request previous articles, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.”