Joe Hosteen Kellwood one of last WWII Navajo code talkers dies aged 95

When he was a child, Joe Hosteen Kellwood was punished at his school on an Apache reservation for speaking in his native Navajo. The school was run by the US military and they wanted him to speak English.

As it was, Mr Kellwood’s skills as a speaker of Navajo would prove of huge importance when he was recruited as a military “code talker” - one of a small team of Navajo speakers who carried vital, naturally-encrypted messages. He served in the Pacific campaign and was awarded at least eight medals.

This week it was announced that Mr Kellwood had died at the age of 95. He was believed to have been one of fewer than 20 original code talkers, whose contribution in WWII inspired the 2002 film Windtalkers, starring Adam Beach and Nicholas Cage.

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CNN said that Mr Kellwood died on Monday at the Veterans Hospital in Phoenix. He served in the First Marine Division and fought during World War II in the Pacific front, seeing battle in Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa, according to his obituary.

As a boy, Mr Kellwood had been spanked in school for daring to speak Navajo. The Marines tweeted a video of Kellwood singing the Marines hymn in Navajo and wrote: “Honour the fallen. Yesterday, one of the last remaining Navajo code talkers passed away at 95 years old.”

Kellwood worked as a Navajo code talker until the war ended in 1945. He was awarded the Congressional Silver Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, Combat Action Ribbon, Naval Unit Commendation, Good Conduct, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and WWII Victory Medal, according to his obituary.

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Arizona’s governor called Kellwood a “hero and patriot.”

“Kellwood served with distinction in the 1st Marine Division as a Navajo code talker, ultimately helping lead the allied forces to victory in World War II,” Governor Doug Ducey said in a statement.

“Let us never forget the countless contributions that code talkers made to our state and our country.”

Mr Kellwood was born in Steamboat Canyon, Arizona, in August 20, 1921.

When he was 10, he was sent to a school at an Apache reservation run by the US military, he told the Veterans History Project in an interview.

He could not speak English so he got punished when he spoke in his native language.

During World War II, he wanted to enlist in the Marine Corps after reading about efforts in the Battle of Guadalcanal, he told the Veterans History Project. He had no idea about the code talkers when he enlisted in 1942, since it was a secret programme.

The Navajo code talkers trained at Camp Elliott, near San Diego. Mr Kellwood underwent intensive training, learning Morse code, radio and Navajo codes.

“I studied on my own at night,” he said about the training. “You had to memorise all the words at the time, 211 words. They were long words. I spelled it. I learned.”

Military authorities chose Navajo as a code language because its syntax and tonal qualities were almost impossible for a non-Navajo to learn, and it had no written form. The ranks of the Navajo code talkers swelled to more than 300 by the end of the war in 1945.