Navajo Code Talkers During Ww2

A language once forbidden became a weapon that was quick, accurate, and never deciphered. During World War II, the United States Marines spook a Native American language, there was no way other countries would be able to understand what the US was saying. The language was Navajo, so it was likely that others would need help understanding what the United States was saying during the radio waves that the Japanese were interpreting. If the Japanese broke into the US radio waves would be sent to different bases to give directions, but they could not crack the code. The Navajo Code Talkers were an essential part of winning World War II, with their help we were able to save thousands of lives, and it also gave us the upper hand during the war. Before

Outside of the Navajo Indians themselves, only 30 people could speak their language (Kallen 11). Since the language was never written down it made it nearly impossible for someone to learn it, unless taught by one of the Navajos themselves. Philip Johnston became so fluent in the Navajo language, that at the age of 9 years old, served as an interpreter for a Navajo delegation to lobby Indians' rights in Washington, D.C (CIA). Shortcuts were created based on the behaviors of animals, these shortcuts were used to spell vital information about the locations of the Japanese military (Tohe). World War II was not the first in a Native American language was used to create a code. In World War I the Choctaw language was used for transmitting secret tactical messages. The American Government was not able to use the Choctaw language after Germany and Japan sent students to the United States to study Native American languages, after World War I. But since the complexity of the Navajo language, made it nearly impossible to break, even if they knew other Native American languages The initial Navajo Code consisted of 211 vocabulary terms, which expanded to 411 throughout the war (CIA). The code was taken to the next level by the Marine Corps, which made it virtually unbreakable, by encoding the language with

Within the first five weeks of Iwo Jima, there were more than 800 messages about Japanese troops' movement and enemy fire sent back and forth in the Navajo Code. Marine officers were astounded by how quickly the Navajo Marines could broadcast, receive, and decode signals from other Code Talkers during the initial testing phase of the Navajo Code Talker's system (Gohn). There were two types of codes created by the Navajo Language and the United States Marine Corps. The first type of code, known as Type 1 Code, consisted of 26 Navajo terms that stood for individual English letters that could be used to spell out a word. The second code, known as Type 2 Code, contained words that could be directly translated from English into Navajo, they also developed a dictionary of 211 terms, which was later expanded to include 411 terms, for military words and names that didn’t originally exist in the Navajo language