Navajo Code Talkers

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Being born and raised in New Mexico, I knew of these men through the stories told by their children/grandchildren. They hold a special place in my heart. The Navajo people are some of the best you will ever meet. 

IT IS A GREAT AMERICAN STORY that is still largely unknown—the story of a group of young Navajo men who answered the call of duty, who performed a service no one else could, and in the process became great warriors and patriots. Their unbreakable code saved thousands of lives and helped end WWII.

Background and Bootcamp: 

DURING THE EARLY MONTHS OF WWII, Japanese intelligence experts broke every code the US forces devised. They were able to anticipate American actions at an alarming rate. With plenty of fluent English speakers at their disposal, they sabotaged messages and issued false commands to ambush Allied troops. To combat this, increasingly complex codes were initiated. At Guadalcanal, military leaders finally complained that sending and receiving these codes required hours of encryption and decryption—up to two and a half hours for a single message. They rightly argued the military needed a better way to communicate.

When Phillip Johnston, a civilian living in California learned of the crisis, he had the answer. As the son of a Protestant missionary, Johnston had grown up on the Navajo reservation and was one of less than 30 outsiders fluent in their difficult language. He realized that since it had no alphabet and was almost impossible to master without early exposure, the Navajo language had great potential as an indecipherable code. After an impressive demonstration to top commanders, he was given permission to begin a Navajo Code Talker test program.

Their elite unit was formed in early 1942 when the first 29 Navajo Code Talkers were recruited by Johnston. Although the code was modified and expanded throughout the war, this first group was the one to conceive it. Accordingly, they are often referred to reverently as the “original 29”. Many of these enlistees were just boys; most had never been away from home before. Often lacking birth certificates, it was impossible to verify ages. After the war it was discovered that recruits as young as 15 and as old as 35 had enlisted. Age inspite of, they easily bore the rigors of basic training, thanks to their upbringing in the southwestern desert.

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Navajo Code Talkers

The first detachment of Navajo Communications Specialists pose for this group picture upon completion of their basic training program in May, 1942.

Advanced training required long hard hours in the classroom, not only memorizing the Navajo code, but learning other communications methods as well.

Navajo Code Talkers.

Navajo Code Talkers=so smart, so amazing! It was these brave men who were able to completely confuse the enemy (the Japanese at the time). It was the one code that the Japanese army could never decipher.

They were a small band of warriors who created an unbreakable code from the ancient language of their people and changed the course of modern history. KNOWN AS NAVAJO CODE TALKERS, they were young Navajo men who transmitted secret communications on the battlefields of WWII. At a time when America’s best cryptographers were falling short, these modest sheepherders and farmers were able to fashion the most ingenious and successful code in military history.

CRI 43007 transmitter-receiver used by Navajo code talkers

George Smith, a member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers

Code Talker veterans

Navajo Code Talkers

Navajo Code Talker David Patterson

Known as Navajo Code Talkers, young Navajo men transmitted secret communications on the battlefields of WWII. At a time when America’s best cryptographers were falling short, these modest sheepherders and farmers were able to fashion the most ingenious and successful code in military history

Window Rock, Az Memorial for the Navajo Code Talkers

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The Code and Code Talking

THE CODE THEY CREATED AT CAMP PENDLETON was as ingenious as it was effective. It originated as approximately 200 terms—growing to over 600 by war’s end—and could communicate in 20 seconds what took coding machines of the time 30 minutes to do. It consisted of native terms that were associated with the military terms they resembled. For example, the Navajo word for turtle meant “tank,” and a dive-bomber was a “chicken hawk.” To supplement those terms, words could be spelled out using Navajo terms assigned to letters of the alphabet—the selection of the Navajo term being based on the first letter of the Navajo word’s English meaning. For instance, “Wo-La-Chee” means “ant,” and would represent the letter “A”. In this way the Navajo Code Talkers could quickly and concisely communicate with each other in a way even uninitiated Navajos could not understand.

Once trained, the Navajo Code Talkers were sent to Marine divisions in the Pacific theater of WWII. Despite some initial skepticism by commanding officers, they quickly gained a distinguished reputation for their remarkable abilities. In the field, they were not allowed to write any part of the code down as a reference. They became living codes, and even under harried battle conditions, had to rapidly recall every word with utmost precision or risk hundreds or thousands of lives. In the battle for Iwo Jima, in the first 48 hours alone, they coded over 800 transmissions with perfect accuracy. Their heroism is widely acknowledged as the lynchpin of victory in the pivotal conflict.

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Learn of the welcome our Code Talkers received when they returned home from the war here. If you’re interested in supporting their cause, the links are on the link as well. Thank you

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SOURCE: The official website of the Navajo Code Talkers

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