Exclusive: Navajo Code Talkers disappear from military websites after Trump DEI order

• They were critical to securing America's victory at Iwo Jima.

Driving the news: Axios identified at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers that had disappeared from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites as of Monday.

How it works: The Defense department's URLs were amended with the letters DEI, suggesting they were removed following President Trump's executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

• The Internet Archive shows the deleted Army pages were live as recently as November, with many visible until February or March. None are shown with error messages until Trump took office.

The other side: Asked about the missing pages, Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot replied in a statement: "As Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. ... We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms."

• "In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly."
• The statement did not address whether the Code Talkers are considered divisive DEI figures that "erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution."

Catch up quick: In both World Wars, the military deployed units that used Indigenous American languages to secretly transmit information in pivotal battles.

• Choctaw soldiers flummoxed German troops during World War I's deadly Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
• At Utah Beach, Comanche troops created terms that didn't exist in the language: Bombers were "pregnant airplanes," tanks were "turtles" and Adolf Hitler was "Po'sa taiboo" — "Crazy White Man."
• Meskwaki Code Talkers were sent to North Africa after 16% of the tribe's Iowa population enlisted during World War II. As of Monday, the word "Meskwaki" no longer appeared on the DOD's website.

Zoom in: The Navajo Code Talkers rapidly and meticulously shared hundreds of messages in the complex Diné language — often during intense battles, making them exemplars of courage under fire.

• At Iwo Jima, six Code Talkers sent more than 800 messages without any errors.

They likely saved countless American and Allied lives by using languages the U.S. government had tried for generations to eliminate.

• Meanwhile, the Code Talkers' function was predicated on diversity in the military; languages with more widespread use couldn't have provided effective encryption.

Stunning stat: Indigenous Americans have enlisted in the U.S. military at a rate five times the national average, per Trump's own proclamation in 2018.

• That proclamation has also been removed.

Zoom out: Axios found other removed pages about Indigenous Americans' contributions, including:

• Profiles of Iraq combat veterans from Arizona, Louisiana and Nevada; a paratrooper with the 173rd Sky Soldiers; and a Cherokee Brigadier General from Oklahoma.
• A chronicle of Native American women who served, including a medic who died while fighting Colorado's Storm Mountain Fire in 1994.
• A news alert that an Oglala Sioux South Dakota National Guardsman had obtained an exemption to wear his hair long in accordance with his religion.

Caveat: As of Monday, the U.S. Marines — the branch that deployed the Navajo Code Talkers — had not removed its pages about them.

• A few mentions also remained on the DOD site, on photo captions and speech transcripts.
• The Army's deleted pages were generally posted during the past two years; older references remained on the site.

The latest: Axios in recent days found the DOD had given similar "DEI" labels to now-broken pages that honored:

• Civil War nurses.
• Prominent Black veterans and units, including the Harlem Hellfighters, the 761st Tank Battalion and 555th Parachute Infantry.
• A Latino airman who coordinated mental health support for military personnel. The deleted story is titled, "Embraced in America, airman pays it forward."

Meanwhile, the Army removed pages honoring:

• The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, depicted in the film "Glory."
• The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II.

The big picture: The military has faced recent complaints over removed pages.

• Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson asked Trump last week to return Utahn Seraph Young — the first woman to vote in America — to Arlington National Cemetery's website after the removal of a list of notable women buried there.
• The Army restored a page Saturday about the celebrated Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regiment after outcry over its disappearance.

Case in point: A profile of Army Major Gen. Charles Rogers, a Black recipient of the Medal of Honor, vanished when the word "medal" was changed to "deimedal" in the URL.

• The implication that his was a "DEI medal" drew ire as details from Rogers' citation circulated online.
• He was wounded three times during a massive assault on a support base in Vietnam when he refused medical care and repeatedly ran into enemy fire to lead counterattacks.
• The page was restored within the past day.