John Kinsel Sr., one of the few living Navajo Code Talkers who used the tribe’s native language to send communications during World War II, died. He was 107.
On Saturday, Navajo Nation officials in Window Rock announced Kinsel’s death.
In honor of Kinsel, Tribal President Buu Nygren has ordered that all flags on the reservation fly at half-staff until October 27 at sunset.
“Mr. Kinsel was a Marine who bravely and selflessly fought for all of us in the most terrifying circumstances with the greatest responsibility as a Navajo Code Talker,” Nygren told reporters on Sunday.
Following Kinsel’s death, just two original Navajo Code Talkers remain alive: former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay.
The Marines recruited hundreds of Navajos to serve as code talkers during the war, delivering signals in their unwritten native language.
During World War II, they confounded Japanese military cryptologists and participated in all of the Marines’ Pacific assaults from 1942 to 1945, including those on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima.
The Code Talkers relayed thousands of messages without error about Japanese army movements, fighting tactics, and other communications critical to the war’s ultimate victory.
Kinsel was born in Cove, Arizona, and raised in the Navajo town of Lukachukai.
He joined the Marines in 1942 and became an elite code talker, serving with the 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Marine Division in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
President Ronald Reagan instituted Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982, and the August 14 celebration recognizes all tribes involved in the war effort.
The day is both an Arizona state holiday and a Navajo Nation celebration on the wide reservation that spans northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah.
