Communicators who Changed History:
                                                   Navajo Code Talkers
 

                    "Ah-woh tkin tsa yeh-hes wola-chee a-chen at-tah-je jay
               khut." This message was repeatedly heard across the Pacific
               Islands on July 23, 1944.1 Japanese cryptographers
               listening in on American frequencies had long since given up
               trying to decipher these strange, guttural tones. If they
               had been able to understand this military code, "Tinian
               attack ready," the course of World War II might have been
               changed.
                    This secret military code developed from an unwritten
               and little known Native American language changed the course
               of World War II. The Navajo Code Talkers, many of them
               teenagers who had lied about their age to get in the
               Marines, were heroes in the Second World War. Raised in
               primitive rural conditions, adventurous Navajos with a sense
               of patriotic duty quickly adapted to the stark conditions of
               remote Pacific islands. Their native tongue was a secret
               weapon that vexed Japanese cryptographers throughout the
               war. These young men, fluent in both Navajo and English,
               created a code that was never broken. As they changed the
               course of World War II their exploits helped fashion a new
               sense of pride and identity among America's native peoples.
                   In the early stages of World War II, Japanese
               cryptographers had succeeded at deciphering every American 
               Code. 2  Because of this a new innovative, impenetrable code
                was desperately needed. Fortunately for the United States,
                the son of a Protestant missionary had a brainstorm.
                Phillip Johnston had grown up on the Navajo Reservation and
                had Navajo playmates from an early age. He spoke a limited
                but highly functional "trader talk" that enabled him to
                communicate with the Navajo people.3 He knew through
                newspaper accounts that the dialects of Choctaw and Cherokee
                failed as codes in World War I because the Indian languages
                had no equivalents for military terms.4   He conceived the
                notion of utilizing the complex Navajo language as the heart
                of a code. His idea went a step further than simply basing
                a code on Navajo. It would be a "code within a code"
                substituting common Navajo words for military terms.
                      At this time the Navajo tongue was considered a
                "hidden" language because no alphabet or other symbols
                existed in the original form.5   Because the Navajo language
                has very complex verb systems and possesses intricate
                inflections, the language was spoken by only twenty-eight
                non-Navajos (traders, missionaries, and anthropologists)
                making the language suitable for a high security code.6
                   Johnston presented his concept to Marine Major General
                Clayton B. Vogel February 28, 1942. Extremely impressed,
                Major General Vogel immediately requested 200 Navajo
                volunteers. Due to Washington red tape, this initial
                request was rejected in favor of a pilot program of thirty
                men.  The initial group of twenty-nine men was selected from
                Navajo Marines already in boot camp. They combined training
                in basic communications (Morse Code and semaphores) with the
                task of constructing the code. William McCabe, one of the
                first Code Talkers, recalls his experiences in the
                assembling of the code. When the Navajos got to Camp
                Pendleton there was
                    nobody to lead us, nobody to give us training. I was
                    the only one that had some college training so I took
                    over. They gave me thirty minutes to think something
                    up or else call whole thing off.8

               McCabe came up with a way of constructing a code in Navajo
               based on things these men were familiar with. Different
               clan names in Navajo stood for all of the service names (for
               example, division/Salt Clan). Different species of birds
               came to symbolize different types of airplanes
               (bomber/chicken hawk). Moving vehicles were represented by
               re tiles (tank/turtle). As a result of this "code within a
               code," the Japanese came up against a code that was not only
               confusing but also complex.
                   In addition they coded the English alphabet with Navajo
               words so terms not included in the Navajo language could be
               spelled out in transmissions Guadalcanal, Mt. Suribachi,
               Tarawa, and countless others all had to be spelled out.10
               They tried to use words that were simple, not too long, and
               could be easily memorized. Most of the words selected were
                taken directly from nature because of the Navajos' reverence
                for Mother Earth." Once the code was set up in English,
                the Code Talkers drilled each other in the Navajo
                translation which was never written. The Navajos displayed
                an incredible capacity to memorize, perhaps because Navajo
                had never been a written tongue and therefore all of their
                songs, ceremonies, and dances, had always been memorized.
                    The code's baptism by fire came in the battle of
                Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942.12 Twenty-seven of the twenty-
                nine recruits were sent out to various divisions, and most
                participated in this battle.13 Two of the original twenty-
                nine Code Talkers stayed in San Diego to train new Navajo
                recruits.14 on arrival to Guadalcanal, two Code Talkers
                were given orders to send a few bogus messages to another
                Code Talker unit on a neighboring ship.
                  Before we were finished talking, the radio was buzzing,
                    the telephone was ringing, and runners were running
                    frantically up the stairs to say that the Japs had
                    taken over our frequeny  and nobody could tell what the
                    hell they were saying.'15
              Obviously, this new code was confusing even to Americans,
              let alone Japanese.
                    The commander of the ship tried to explain that it was
              their own men communicating back and forth but he was not
              pleased when the Code Talkers disrupted the routine of his
              ship. He wondered if the Code Talkers were worth the
              trouble. He said he would keep them on one condition--that
              they could out-race his "white code," a cylinder-clicking
                device. A white Marine bragged that it would only take him
                two hours to communicate the one line message to four
                different units. "Two hours," a code talker replied, "I can
                do it in two minutes!" Four and a half minutes later the
                Code Talker had completed the assignment. 16
                    During the battle of Guadalcanal, Code Talkers relayed
                messages efficiently, impressing everyone. 17 After the
                termination of the battle, Major General Alexander A.
                Vandergrift, commanding general of the First Marine
                Division, was so pleased with the Code Talkers he sent a
                message to the Commandant of the Marine Corps requesting
                assignment of eighty-three more Code Talkers to his
                division. other senior marines in the Pacific Theatre
                recommended the distribution of Code Talkers throughout the
                combat units. The request was filled and the recruiting of
                young Navajos was launched.18

                     However, recruitment of the Navajo Code Talkers was
                slow and tedious. The word was sent to Bureau of Indian
                Affairs schools of the need for Code Talkers, and Marine
                recruiters personally went to many high schools.19 The
                Navajo Code Talker program was not kept a secret from these
                young enlistees, and they openly knew they were to use their
               language to defend their country.20   Many young Navajo boys
                who were too young to serve in the Marines desperately
                wanted to join. Numerous Code Talkers lied to the Marine
                recruitment officers about their age in order to enter the
                Marine Corp.21  The young Navajos were very patriotic
                because of a need they felt to protect their homeland.22
                     Illustrating the eagerness of the Marines for these
                young Navajo enlistees, Frank Chee Willetto tells the
                following story:
                   I was in line for a physical. I was stripped naked.
                     And there comes a Marine, coming down the line. He saw
                     me and ask me if I was a Navajo. I said, 'Yes.' There
                     was quite a bit of line in front of me and he said,
                     'Come with me.' I followed that guy around to another
                     room and they gave me a physical in there. I did not
                     know I was getting involved in something like Navajo
                     Code Talking. 23

               All Navajo enlistees had to be able to read and write
               English as well as speak Navajo fluently.24 They left
               their scattered reservation homes and were shipped to Santa
               Fe, New Mexico, to get their physicals. After Navajo
               Marines passed their physicals, they returned home and then
               reported back to Gallup, New Mexico, where they boarded a
               train for San Diego.25

                   Boot camp for the young communicators consisted of the
               same core requirements of any other Marine. The harsh life
               of the reservation made the Navajos very adaptable for boot
               camp.26 After they finished this course, they attended the
               "Code Talker School" where they learned how to use some of
               the basic communication, such as the radio, the telephone,

                   Wilford Billey tells of an experience on Saipan, one of
              the largest Japanese strongholds. While on an errand to
              another unit, he was stopped by a Marine patrol and
              interrogated for half an hour. Thinking he was a Japanese
              soldier, they wanted to know what he was doing behind enemy
              lines wearing a Marine uniform. He showed them his
              credentials, told them what he was doing, and disclosed the
              password for the day, but the patrol still did not believe
              him. Only after putting a gun to his head and marching him
              to headquarters where he was positively identified, would
              the Marines believe that he was an American.30
                  Tinian, another major battle for the Marines, was a
             blood-bath and many Americans as well as Japanese lost their
             lives. One Code Talker will never forget his experiences on
             the island.

                     My buddy and I had been in this trench for four days.
                     We had tied ourselves together with a short piece of
                     cord so we couldn't lose each other in the dark. One
                     night when the firing was intense, a screaming Japanese
                     soldier leaped into the trench and killed my partner
                     with a samurai sword before other Marines could shoot
                     him. I had to stay there sending messages with my
                     friend's blood gushing all over me and my microphone.
                     After we got out, I was-told all my messages got
                     through without error.31
               Even under intense pressure of battle, Navajo Code Talkers
               were very efficient and effective.
                     In the battle of Guam, Code Talkers not only sent and
               received messages but fought face to face with the enemy
               because the Japanese resistance was so heavy. One Code
               Talker, George Kirk, remembers ingenious "double-decker"
               foxholes from which the Japanese emerged to attack the
               Marines from the rear. On Guam the Code Talkers
               demonstrated a memorable example of their teamwork,
               training, and dedication. Using the Navajo code, they
               coordinated a naval bombardment with Marine artillery fire
               to shatter a large force of Japanese massing for a
               counterattaQk.32  After this battle, commanders said the
               use of Code Talkers in this operation "was considered
               indispensable for the rapid transmission of classified
               dispatches. Traditional enciphering and deciphering time
               would have prevented vital operational information from
               being dispatched or delivered to staff sections with any
               degree of speed.33
                   Without doubt, Iwo Jima was the battle the Code Talkers
               influenced most. Major Howard Conner of the Fifth Marine
                Division said, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines
                would never have taken Iwo Jima."35   Over 60,000 American
                Marines landed in the assault of this island, and the
                whole operation was directed with the Indians manning the
                radios. According to "radio war chief," Harold Foster, in
                one forty-eight hour span, the Navajo Code Talkers sent and
                received over 800 messages without error.36  Not one word
                was deciphered by the Japanese.37  The news of the historic
                rising of an American flag on Mount Suribachi was radioed
                back to headquarters by Code Talker Harold Foster.38 The
                impact of the Navajo Code Talkers in this battle is one of
                the greatest examples of how this communication during World
                War II saved many American lives and changed the outcome of
                many battles.
                     Significantly, during all of the battles in the
                Pacific Theatre, American front line riflemen were given
                orders to shoot any Navajo Code Talker they saw being taken
                captive as a further precaution to safeguard the code.39
                The Japanese also sensed the importance of the men with the
                radios and desperately sought to decipher the United
                States's only unbreakable code. When American Marines
                captured a Japanese general, he pleaded with them, "Before
                you kill me, just tell me what code you used. "40  Years
                after the war, the former chief of intelligence for the
                Japanese forces remarked that his countrymen had deciphered
                all American codes except the ones used by the Marines.
                When told that messages were transmitted in the language of
               an American Indian tribe, General Seizo Arisue sighed and
               replied, "Thank you. That is a puzzle no one thought would
               ever be solved."41
                    With the cessation of the war, numerous Cqde Talkers
               were told not to speak about their experiences, so the code
               could be used again.42   For twenty-three long years, the
               general public knew virtually nothing of the wartime
               contributions made by Navajo Code Talkers. The development
               of byzantine computer codes in 1968 rendered the code
               obsolete and the United States Government finally dropped
               the "top secret" classification of the Navajo Code
               Talkers.43

                    For over thirty years, Americans did not realize the
               impact Navajo Code Talkers had on the outcome of World War
               II because the existence of their secret code was not
               officially revealed until 1968. Although, the majority of
               these young Marines were not seeking fame and glory, they
               were definitely heroes. These Marines performed flawlessly
               under harrowing front line conditions. Their bravery and
               skill provided a tremendous advantage for the United States.
               Much faster than the mechanical systems of the time, the
               indecipherable Navajo code allowed the Marines to almost
               instantly react to changing battlefield conditions in a
               secretive manner. According to a Marine Corps official
               press release, "Without the help of the Navajos, America's
               goal of finding an unbreakable code might never have been
                realized."44  This secure code provided the element of
                surprise needed to win key battles, which shortened and
                ultimately won the war. This communication based on the
                unwritten Navajo language, a first in the annals of American
                history, helped change the course of World War II.

                     'Ron McCoy, "Navajo Code Talkers of World War II,"
                Anerican-West, November/December 1981, 68.
                     2Joint Public Affairs Office, Press Release, Navajo
                Code Talkers (Camp Pendleton, California: Marine corps,   15
                September 1982), 1.

                     3Shirley W. Belleranti, "The Code that Couldn't Be
                Cracked," The Retired Officer, November 1984, 34.

                     4MCCoy.

                    5Robert Young, linguistics Professor at the University
               of New Mexico, interview by author, 21 November 1992,
               Albuquerque, New Mexico.

                    6Davis, Jr., 16.

                    7Goode Davis, Jr., "Proud Tradition of the Marines'
               Navajo Code Talkers," Marine CgXps.League, Spring 1990,18.
                    8William McCabe, "Duke Oral History Collection, 1978,"
               1171, Manuscripts Division, special Collections, University
               of Utah Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                    9McCoy, 68.

                    10Carl Gorman, former Navajo Code Talker, interview by
              telephone, 4 February 1993.

                   "Dorris Paul, The Navajo..Code Talkers (Pennsylvania:
              Dorrance Publishing Company, 1973), 23.

                   12 American-EncycloRedia of Family History
              (Pleasantville, California: Readers Digest Association),
              1975 ed., s.v. "World War II."

                    13 Nartin Link, We Talked Navaj    photocopy (from office
                of Peterson Zah, Navajo Tribal President), 14 August 1992.

                    14 Gorman.
 

                     15 Paul, 32.
 

                      16 Paul, 33.

                    17Kenji Kawano, warriors: Navajo code Tal -kers
                (Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland Publishing, 1990), 9-10.

                    18Kawano, 11.

                    19Miriam Taylor, Indian Trader, interview with author,
               22 November 1992, Farmington, New Mexico.

                    2OWilford Billey, former Navajo Code Talker, interview
               by author, 22 November 1992, Farmington, New Mexico.

                    21MCCoy, 18

                   22 Harold Foster, former Navajo Code Talker, interview
              by author, 23 November 1992, Window Rock, Arizona.

                   23Frank Chee Willetto, former Navajo Code Talker,
              interview by author, 22 November 1992, Crownpoint, New Mexico.

                   24Young.
 

                   25Willetto.
 

                   16 Paul, 14.

                   27Billey.

                   28Willetto.

                     29Albert Smith, former Navajo code Talker, interview by
                author, 21 November 1992, Gallup, New Mexico.

                     3OBilley.

                     3IWilliam E. Hafford, "The Navajo Code Talkers,"
                Arizona Highways February 1989, 41.

                     32Davis, Jr., 24.

                     33Kawano, 3 8.

                     34Matthew S. Brown, "Memorial to Honor Navajo Code
                Talkers," Desert News, 14 September 1992, Al, A2.

                     35Family Encyclopedia of American-History.

                     36Foster.

                     37Haff ord.

                     38Foster.

                     39Davis, Jr., 18.

                     4OThey Talked Navajo: A Record of the United States
                      Marine Corns Navajo Code Talkers, photocopy (from Marine
                      Corps Headquarters), 7 April 1971.

                     41Harff ord.

                     42 Billey.

                     43MCCoy.

                     44 Joint Public Affairs Office, Navajo Code Talkers, p.3.