By Marilyn Miller
When a team of “quasi-missionaries” from the First Baptist Church of Minden traveled to Gallup, New Mexico in early October 2023 to minister to the Navajo Indians, one member of “Team NOEL” confessed to having slightly deeper feelings for the Navajo people.
Jean Calvit Chatman “probably wouldn’t be here if not for the Navajos” who enlisted in the military during World War II and developed a secret code using their language…a code that was never broken during wartime. That code almost certainly saved the life of her father, George Calvit, who was wounded while fighting as a Marine on the island of Iwo Jima in February of 1945.
Like the Navajo code talkers, whose fame climbed even higher after the release of the movie “Windtalkers” starring Nicholas Cage back in 2002, Calvit had the best and the worst happen to him during those days before and after he shipped out to Iwo Jima.
According to his grandson, Chris Kirkley of Shreveport, George Calvit enlisted in the Marines in August of 1942. “He had a great job at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant,” Kirkley said, “And they (the military) didn’t want him to enlist.” However, Calvit wanted to serve where he could make the most difference – in the field. He joined the Marines and headed for training in California, where he was assigned to the anti-tank unit. When his unit was ordered overseas, once again, the rank and file didn’t want Calvit to go. His fellow soldiers smuggled him onto the ship headed to New Zealand for more training. Calvit, of course, arrived without gear, so he had to pay for his next issuance of arms, uniform, and pack. After training, the unit headed for New Calidonia. Calvit served two tours of duty in the Pacific theater.
However, it was on the island of Iwo Jima in the south Pacific that Corporal George A. Calvit, Jr. distinguished himself. On February 19, 1945, he was aboard ship among the “reserves” when the Marines pointed the first wave of landing craft toward Iwo Jima. However, just an hour-and-a-half later, they were called out.
They hit the beach and sank nearly a foot into thick black sand that covered the island. “You can imagine…it would be like a video game…the Japanese are hiding ‘under the sand’ in tunnels and ‘pill boxes’ (a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, often camouflaged, normally equipped with holes through which weapons can be fired)…just popping up every now and then to try to kill you,” Kirkley said.
Calvit was wounded four times on Iwo Jima, twice from shrapnel and twice from arms fire, the final being a shot to a shoulder, which badly damaged a lung. He was in command now, and he had been kneeling alongside a tank and directing it where to fire (using an exterior telephone) toward a machine gun nest atop a “pill box.” Machine gun fire caught him in the right shoulder. He crawled to the back of the tank, where medics found him and transported him to a field hospital on the island. They gave him morphine and let him sleep. In his dreams he was floating in water. He awakened and realized that he was “exhaling” blood from his lung. He was immediately flown to Guam for better treatment. It was this fourth injury, and his bravery, that earned him the Silver Star.
But Calvit’s “fighting” wasn’t finished. His wounded right arm started to swell while he was waiting in Guam for transfer to Hawaii. The doctors recommended amputation at the shoulder. He said he’d die first. So, the staff constructed a trough and filled it with ice. After a while, the swelling started to subside. He returned to the United States. He was on medical leave in Minden when the atomic bomb was dropped. He was on active duty headed for Philadelphia when Japan surrendered. He spent VJ Day there. It took Calvit 45 years to begin talking about his experiences…
CODE TALKERS ON FRONT LINES
Code talkers are “local heroes” around Gallup, NM and Window Rock, AZ, places that were visited by team members from the First Baptist Church of Minden in early October 2023. Jean Chatman was among the visitors, spending time at the Code Talkers’ Memorial at Window Rock and the Navajo Nation Museum nearby. Code talkers are the focus of many exhibits at the museum, and 96-year-old area native Thomas H. Begay is one of the only remaining code talkers.
One writer said that “Soon after turning 18, Begay found himself on the front lines in the midst of apocalyptic combat on Iwo Jima. He had been sent to the 27th Marines as a replacement for another code talker who had been killed in action. He remembers that two other code talkers were killed and three more wounded on the first day of the battle.”
New Mexico writer Martha Hutchens said that “While the Code Talkers were already appreciated (for writing an unbreakable military code) for their unique abilities, at Iwo Jima they completely proved their worth. They handled all communications between the command post at sea and the forward stations, sending more than 800 messages during the first 48 hours. They sent the message that Mount Suribachi was secured (the place with the famous photo of four men raising the US flag). They sent the final message that the island was secured. And they sent thousands of messages in between – none of which could be understood by the enemy. Major Howard M. Conner, signal officer for the 5th Marine Division (Calvit’s division) said, ‘Were it not for the Navajos, the marines would have never taken Iwo Jima and won the war.’”
And Corporal George A. Calvit, Jr. would have never made it off the island alive…
