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The Navajo Code Talkers: Keeping Information From The Japanese Imperial Army

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It is a widely known fact that during WWII, the Navajo's were enlisted in the military to send and receive encrypted messages between different military groups embedded in combat. These messages were secret tactical messages developed solely to keep information from the Japanese Imperial Army. There were approximately 500 Native Americans enlisted in the United States Marine Corps with the purpose of using formal or informal codes that were built upon their native languages. Although the Navajo People are recognized as being the code talkers, there were many other tribes brought into the military for the same purpose as early as WWI, mainly the Cherokee and Choctaw peoples. The military also enlisted Lakota, Meskwaki and Comanche soldiers, …show more content…

Margalit Fox wrote an obituary honoring Mr. Nez when he died at the age 93. Within the article, it is discussed that “The Navajo code was formally developed and modeled on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet that uses agreed-upon English words to represent letters. The Navajo Code Talkers mainly Marines. As it was determined that phonetically spelling out all military terms letter by letter into words—while in combat—would be too time-consuming, some terms, concepts, tactics and instruments of modern warfare were given uniquely formal descriptive nomenclatures in Navajo (for example, the word for "shark" being used to refer to a destroyer, or "silver oak leaf" to the rank of lieutenant colonel)". The codebook was used to teach concepts and words to new recruits. The codebook was never taken into battle. All codes had to be memorized with quick responses under battle conditions during their training. Those soldiers not speaking the Navajo language would not understand the talker' message. They would hear truncated and a string of unrelated nouns and verbs. The code used by the Navajo soldiers was never deciphered by the Japanese. They are credited with the winning the Battle of Iwo Jima by Major Howard Conner of the 5th Marine Division. During the battle, Major Conner had six Navajo code talkers that worked 24 hours a day for 2 days. During that time, they deciphered and sent hundreds of messages without a

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Code talker, by Joseph Bruchac is a book in which talks about a young mans life. The book is ideally meant to be for his grandchildren to read later on in the future. The author, Joseph talks about a young Navajo’s story and the battle he had to go through before and after the World War. Kii Yazhi, the main character, is courageous, Intelligent, and determined. His mother in the book is acknowledged as “mother” she is a sweet lady and caring about her son as well as the other Navajo people.

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For instance, the code was based on the Navajo language and this was the languages used to create the code, therefore the code was hard to comprehend. This was hard to figure out because the Navajo language was unwritten back then. The author states, “After basic training in 1942, Nez's platoon was tasked with developing a code, based on the then-unwritten Navajo language.” This proves that the fact that it was in the Navajo language was one of the things that made the code hard to crack. To conclude, there are several reasons the code was hard to crack and the Navajo language was one of

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Yes, the Navajo code was the only language the Japanese could not crack. During the battle of Iwo Jima the Navajo code talkers sent and received 800 messages without a single error. Treatment during and after the war: Many fellow soldiers respected the aptitude of the code talkers and many native americans were awarded with high military honors.

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In the Code Talkers, Ned learns American ways and goes to serve in World War Two by being a Code Talker. In the novel, it shows the ability to find strength and courage through one's culture. The four examples I choose was Ned not wanting to forget his language, doing the Blessingsway ceremony, working hard/not giving up, and learning self-confidence as a marine. When Ned was in boarding school the teachers would punish Navajo children if the spoke Navajo. For some, the punishment was bad enough that it was hard to speak Navajo, but for Ned, it made him not want to forget it.

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The code talkers were deployed on some islands near mainland Japan. The Navajo natives were first used by the United States Marine Corps in May 1942. There were lots of Navajo natives recruited into the Marine Corps at this time. The total amount of Navajo natives that were employed by the United States Marine Corps for the extent of the war was five hundred forty. Four hundred of those soldiers were used as code talkers.

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His cultural aspects and renewed self-worth are grown by the war and help him along the way. Ned’s cultural Navajo identity is affected by World War II. For example, Ned says that he, "Pray[s] that none of you have to go to battle as I did. I also pray that you will fight to keep our language, to hold on to it with the same warrior spirit that our Indian people showed during that war.” (214) Ned’s language is an important aspect of his culture.

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Initially it was the Marine Corps that had recruited 29 Navajo men to train as Code Talkers. This was at the beginning of the war. By the end, over 400 Navajo were trained and many of them served in the Pacific Theater. The Army had similar training programs for troops in Europe and North Africa (TNA 2016). Although many men from many different tribes were trained as Code Talkers, it was the Navajo that were primarily used during the second World War.

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