Impact Of Navajo Code Talkers

Throughout America’s expansion and development, Indians have played active roles in both America’s growth as a country and in its relationships with other countries around the world. Two significant events American Indians left their imprint on the world, are World War I and World War II. These world wars affected the lives of the American people and the lives of the Indian people. The Navajo Nation, in particular, played an active role during the war, especially with the Code Talkers. The Navajo Code Talkers were a great influence during the war and fulfilled several crucial roles and purposes for the war effort and throughout the war. Employing Indian languages for military purposes did not first begin with the Navajo. The purpose

Much of the code was from symbolic Navajo words such as bird carrier being an aircraft carrier, iron fish meaning submarine, and potato referring to a hand grenade. Later, while training new Navajo recruits, they would also focus on the changing of ship’s names, airplanes, and other military equipment into words from the Navajo language. Chester Nez, one of the original 29 Code Talkers, said that “the fact that the Marines did not tell us Navajo men how to develop that code indicated their trust in us and in our abilities.” He later remarked in being involved with creating the code in which, “all thirteen of us men had had a hand in designing the secret code…recruited for our fluency in both Navajo and English; we’d been locked in a room after basic training and told to develop a secret military language using our native Navajo. Now each man was determined that the code would guarantee an American victory over the Japanese in the South

But officially the pairs of men partnered together were put into groups of four; with two groups of four working together with two other rotators. These groups would be assigned together on the same ships and later split up upon reaching land. When speaking of how the system worked during attacks Chester Nez replied, “four of the code talkers in our band remained on board ship and the other six disembarked. Our positions—land versus ship—changed with different campaigns. Once ashore, the land-based men stayed in touch with those on the ship and with each other so everyone knew what was happening.” However, there were times when the code talkers would be sending messages to other code talkers that they didn’t know. Samuel Holiday, a Code Talker experienced several of these occurrences during the bombings in Japan and Iwo Jima when his ship stopped in Saipan, “we also heard of… other aircraft and submarines working against Iwo Jima and how they were taking pictures of the island. To this day, I do not know who the code talkers were that I was sending or receiving messages from or even where they were located. They could have been stationed on an airplane, submarine, or aircraft