Dooley D. Shorty; Teacher, Wartime Code Talker

Dooley D. Shorty, 89, a Navajo silversmith and teacher who was one of the tribe’s code talkers in the South Pacific during World War II. Born on the tribal reservation in Cornfields, Ariz., Shorty enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corp during the war and was assigned to train Navajos in the secret code based on the Navajos’ native tongue. The 420 or so Navajo code talkers, as they were called, transmitted messages in that language that were undecipherable to the Japanese military. The initial code they memorized included 26 Navajo words--one for each English letter--and 211 other words for military phenomena. The code talkers’ role, which was kept secret for more than two decades after the war, was seen as pivotal in relaying sensitive information among U.S. forces in the Pacific theater. After the war, Shorty taught silversmithing to hundreds of middle and high school students at the now defunct Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah. On Sunday in Albuquerque, N.M., after a brief illness.