Last Lakota Code Talker Dies at 86
The last Lakota Code talker from WWII has died. His name was Clearance Wolf Guts, and he passed away Wednesday at a Veteran’s Home in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The Rapid City Journal reports:
The 450 Navajo code talkers were the most famous group of Native American soldiers to radio messages from the battlefields, but 15 other tribes used their languages to aid the Allied efforts in World War II. Wolf Guts was one of 11 Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Native American code talkers from South Dakota. Wolf Guts, of Wamblee, enlisted in the U.S. Army on June 17, 1942, at age 18. While in basic training, a general asked Wolf Guts if he spoke Sioux. He explained the three dialects to the general and said he spoke Lakota. Wolf Guts helped develop a phonetic alphabet based on Lakota that was later used to develop a Lakota code. He and three other Sioux code talkers joined the Pacific campaign; Wolf Guts’ primary job was transmitting coded messages from a general to his chief of staff in the field.
After the Twin Towers were attacked on 9-11, Clearance Wolf Guts, in his 70′s at the time, had his son call Washington D.C. to ask if his services could be used in helping find those responsible. His patriotism for his country and his sense of duty did not fade with age.
