Early
in 1942 Philip Johnson, met Major
General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps,
Pacific Fleet, and suggested
that the U.S.
Marines used
the Navajo language as a secret code. Johnson,
who had grown up on an Navajo Reservation, argued that because
it of its complex syntax, tonal qualities and dialect, the Japanese
cryptographers would find it impossible to decipher. He also pointed
out that Navajo was not a written language and less than 30
non-Navajos understood
it. Johnson added that it was an extremely complicated language. Meaning
in the language is not only dependent on accurate pronounciation,
the tonal emphasis can totally change the sense of a word
Vogel
was convinced by Johnson's arguments and it was decided to establish
a Navajo code programme at Camp Pendleton at Oceanside, California.
In May 1942 the first 29 Navajo Code Talkers were recruited. Over
the next few months more than 450 frequently used military terms were
given Navajo equivalents. For example, dah-he-tih-hi was the Navajo
word for hummingbird. In the code dah-he-tih-hi
now became the word for fighter plane. Whereas toh-at
(between waters) meant Britain.
An
estimated 400
Navajos agents were trained to use the code and around 300 saw action
in the field. Speaking Navajo and using an additional code within
that, they were able to convey information and orders among Marine
units and Navy warships and aircraft. The Code Talkers served in all
six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute
units. The Code Talkers were a part of every major Marine assault
during the Second World War and first saw action
on 7th August 1942 when the marines landed on Guadalcanal.
Merril
Sandoval and several other Navajos who was sent with the marines
that invaded Japanese held Iwo Jima on 19th
February, 1945. The Navajo Code Talkers were distributed among the
3rd, 4th and 5th Marine divisions. Sandoval's job was to stay behind
the frontline and translate reports from two-man code talker teams
elsewhere on the island. Sandoval then sent back these messages to
military commanders based on Hawaii. Sandoval
was also responsible for passing on orders to the U.S.
Marines
on the frontline.
Some senior
officers believe that the contribution of the Navajo code played an
important role in the success of the operation as the Japanese had
already broken the codes of the United
States Army
and the United
States Air Force.
Major Howard Connor, a 5th Marine Division signals officer, later
argued: "Were it not for the Navajos, the marines would never
have taken Iwo Jima."
Being a
Navajo Code Talker was a dangerous occupation. According to Merril
Sandoval, Navajo soldiers were at great risk from being shot in
battle by their own side: "Those city kids had no idea. On the
frontline, some of them mistook us for Japanese."
Sandoval
and his team of code talkers fought throughout the Pacific campaign
and were with the U.S.
Marines
when they
arrived in Japan in September 1945.
The role
of the Navajo code breakers was kept a secret until 1968. It was claimed
that the main reason for this was that the military might want to
use the code again after the war. Another factor might have been because
the government had for many years been involved in trying to destroy
the Navajo language. For example, during the Second
World War, while the Code Talkers were risking their lives on
the frontline, back home, Navajo children were being punished at reservation
schools for speaking their native language.
In December
1981 President Ronald
Reagan awarded
the Navajo Code Talkers with a Certificate of Appreciation. A campaign
led by Senator Jeff Bingaman led to the first 29 Code Breakers receiving
Congressional Gold Medals in 2001 and the rest received Silver Medals.
A Hollywood film based on the role of the Navajo code talkers, Windtalkers,
appeared in 2002.
Northern
Arizona University: Navajo Code Talker Lesson
Navajo
Code Cipher
Navajo
Code Talkers' Dictionary
Navajo
Code Talkers: A Select Bibliography
Navajo
Code Talkers: World War II Fact Sheet
Esquire
Magazine: How the Navajo Won the War
Indian
Country: Code Talkers
List
of Code Talkers
(1)
Peter Lennon, The
Guardian (23rd August 2002)
The original 29 Navajo Code Talkers were recruited early in 1942 in
response to the growing problem of Japanese interception of radio
transmissions, which meant codes were becoming increasingly elaborate
and taking longer to decipher. This was not the first time native
Americans had been used to pass military information in battle: a
group of eight Choctaw were used to transmit messages during the closing
stages of the first world war. But it was the first time such a language
had been used to create a code. The result was so baffling that, after
three years of trying, the Japanese never broke it.
The idea belonged to Philip
Johnston, a missionary's son, who had been brought up on a Navajo
reservation and spoke the language, called Diné, fluently.
Diné had the advantages of being naturally complex and virtually
unwritten: the first, incomplete Diné alphabet was developed
in the early 20th century. Meaning in the language is not only dependent
on accurate pronunciation: the tonal emphasis can totally change the
sense of a word - "doc", for example, is either "and"
or "not" depending on your tone. But the final defeating
challenge must be the "ejective" consonants, expressed with
a burst of breath.
(2)
Bill Toledo, a Navajo Code
Talker, interviewed by Peter Lennon of the The
Guardian (23rd August 2002)
Young Navajo men who were already trained as Code Talkers came to
the school and talked to all the 18-year-old boys. They wanted boys
who were in good physical condition, who could speak and write English
and speak Navajo fluently. It took us about two months to learn the
code. Then we were shipped to New Zealand, and from there to Guadalcanal,
after it was secure, where we were trained for the jungle.
(3)
Chester Nez, a Navajo Code
Talker, interviewed by Peter Lennon of the The
Guardian (23rd August 2002)
At first there were quite a few generals and commanders who didn't
think it was going to work. So they set up two communications centres,
one run by white signalmen. They gave us both 10 messages to send
and decipher. Theirs took almost five minutes to cypher and decode,
ours took one to two minutes.
Sometimes we worked off
the beach; then they sent us back and forth from the command ship
to the front line. We were working almost day and night.
(4)
Merrel Sandoval, interviewed by Tom Otley of the Sunday
Times about landing on Iwo
Jima in February 1945 (25th August 2002)
Looking back, I don't think I was even scared. When you are young
you don't think much about what's going to happen. "Kill or be
killed', that's what the training had instilled in us. I was just
thinking it was like a film.
The landing was terrible.
The surf was really rough and the beach was steep, so when the landing
craft didn't hit straight on they turned over. In the end we had to
dump all our gear, including the radios, and swim ashore or we would
have drowned.
(5)
Roy Hawthorne, Navajo Code Talker, interviewed by the Arizona Republic
newspaper about the invasion of Iwo
Jima (9th June 2002)
One incident in particular
I remember distinctly. We encountered a force that was superior in
manpower and firepower, and so we were pinned down for a couple of
days at least. That was the time the antenna on my radio was shot
off.
We were trained in a number
of areas of communication, and one of those was field wire, so we'd
always have some field wire with us and the tools to work with it,
like pliers and cutters and stuff like that. So I was fortunate enough
to put that back together. At least for a temporary fix to get a message
out. So we got a message out for an air strike. And they showed up
in just a little while and saved the day. That was on Okinawa.
(6)
Samuel Tso, Navajo Code Talker, interviewed
by the Arizona Republic newspaper about the invasion of Okinawa
(9th June 2002)
When I ran across that
Death Valley, I ran into a whole bunch of Marines who got shot down
trying to cross that valley. Some were still alive, and they reached
out to us to ask for help. But the sergeant was right behind us and
said, "You're not supposed to do that kind of duty, you're supposed
to locate the machine-gun nests and report back. That is your mission."
So we didn't have time to help anybody out, we just kept going and
we located a couple of them (enemy positions).
Just to keep the machine
guns silent, we threw some hand grenades close by the machine-gun
nest. And we found out it's not an open nest, it's an enclosed nest,
and there's just a slit where they were firing from. Even though we
hit the enclosed nest, the hand grenade bounced off and exploded outside.
But then that was just to keep their heads down until we crossed back
across the valley and report, and we did report, and that's when one
of the Navajo Code Talkers sent a message and ordered artillery fire,
mortar fire and rockets.
While he was sending over
there, and I was over on the other side, the sergeant chewed me out.
Oh, he really got after two of us who stopped and tried to help those
wounded Marines. And when they finished sending the message, within
about five minutes, they started shelling and (dropping) all that
bombardment on that machine-gun area, they just literally blew everything
up. I don't know how many minutes it took them.
When they stopped firing,
they ordered the Marines to cross it, and the Marines just walked
across that valley. So those machine guns were all knocked out. That
was toward the end of the Iwo Jima operation."
(7)
Mike Kiyanni, a Navajo Code Talker, interviewed by Tom Otley of the
Sunday
Times (25th August
2002)
I raised my hand and swore to protect the flag, the constitution and
my country. But after the war, having fought and been injured, I came
back and found we Navajos were still being pushed around. I worked
seven years in a uranium factory. It was the only job I could get.
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