Obituaries in the News

Stewart Clah

TSE' DAA' KAAN, N.M. (AP) - Stewart Clah, a Navajo code talker who helped confound the Japanese during World War II and was awarded a congressional silver medal, has died. He was 87.

Clah died Sunday in his sleep, his family said.

The code talkers were an elite group of Navajo Marines who transmitted radio messages during the war in a coded version of their native language. The codes were never cracked by enemy forces; the talkers' existence was a military secret for decades after the war ended.

Twenty-nine original Navajo code talkers - the first group to graduate from training - were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal by President …