Passage II

Navajo Code Talkers

During World War II, a group of Navajo soldiers developed a code that became one of the most successful in U.S. military history. This group, known as the Navajo code talkers, took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, transmitting information, on tactics, troop movements, orders, and other vital communications over telephones and radios.

American military officials have been using cumbersome machines to encode and relay information during battles. In preliminary tests under simulated combat conditions, the Navajo encoded, transmitted, and decoded a three-line message in twenty seconds as the machines required thirty minutes to perform the same job. Nevertheless, these tests convinced the officials of the value, of using the Navajo language in a code.

The Navajo language is complex, with a structure and sounds that makes them unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure to it. Outside Navajo communities, such exposure is rare, which greatly contributed to it’s success.

The Navajo developed and memorized the code. Since their language did not have words for common U.S. military equipment, they turned to nature. They named planes after birds and ships after fish. Dive bombers became gini (chicken hawk) and destroyers were called ca-lo (shark). The skilled Japanese code breakers remained baffled by the Navajo language. The code was never broken.

Unfortunately, the code talkers sometimes faced dangerous peril from their own side. Many code talkers needed bodyguards to protect them from other American soldiers, some of whom mistook the Navajo for Japanese soldiers. Regardless, the Navajo were resolute and served their country courageously.

The Navajo code remained classified after the war that was later used, along with codes made from other American Indian languages, in the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. Now that the Navajo code is no longer used, the code talkers, whose secret work saved American lives, can finally receive public recognition for their actions.