The Navajo Code Talkers

Paul, Doris A. The Navajo Code Talkers. Pittsburgh: Dorrance 19739. Print.

First Sentences:

Every syllable of my message came through. Sometimes we had to crawl, had to run, had to lie partly submerged in a swamp or in a lagoon, or in the dead heat, pinned under fire. But there was no problem. We transmitted out messages under any and all conditions.

Description:

I've always been fascinated (but not good at solving) codes. Over the years, however, dedicated amateurs and professional code-breakers have broken all codes. All, that is, except one: the Navajo code utilized by America during World War II.

Doris A. Paul's The Navajo Code Talkers is the definitive history of this code and the men who created and successfully employed it. Extensive interviews with the Navajo Code Talkers gives the narrative a deeply personal account of each man's commitment to the program. reflecting the intense, maybe desperate need for the code to work.

The Navajo nation, in an edict from their Tribal Council at Window Rock in June, 1940, expressed their commitment to "aid and defend our Government and its institutions against all subversive and armed conflict." After the official call to arms went out, 

Navajo men appeared at their agencies, carrying old muskets and hunting rifles, asking where they could fight the enemy. Many were turned away, heartbroken and humiliated that they could not fight because they could not speak English.

But those who spoke English were recruited to counteract the Japanese proclivity to break any English code. During close fighting, messages containing vital information about positions of troops, coordination of attack times, and battle news had to be delivered quickly, with no time for transcription of complex codes. A simple, unbreakable, easily transported code was needed.

Previously, Choctaws had been employed briefly during World War I to simply relay messages via telephone to stymie German interception. Later, Comanches, Creek, Choctaw, Menominee, Chippewa, and Hopi were used as communicators, but in the limited capacity of speaking only their own language. What was needed was an untranslatable Native American language, but updated by creating new terms for military items like "tank," "machine gun," "barrage," etc.

The Navajo language was suggested as the perfect platform:

The Navajo tongue is an extremely difficult language to master, and should a non-Navajo (particularly German or Japanese) learn to speak it, counterfeiting its sounds would be almost impossible.

Twenty-nine Navajo men were recruited from reservation schools and trained by the Marines for a pilot program. For some, this was the first time off the reservation. Firsthand accounts from interviews with the original Navajo Code Talkers revealed the challenges, expectations, and actual dangers to their jobs:

We wrung our minds dry trying to figure out words that would be usable, that would not be too long, and that could be easily memorized. After all, in the heat of battle, the code talker would have no time to take out a chart and look up vocabulary for an urgent message.

A sample alphabet and terms are reproduced in the book, containing examples like:

"Gini" (literally "Chicken Hawk") is the Navajo word created for "Dive Bomber" 

"Be-al-doh-cid-da-hi (sitting gun) = Mortar" 

"Joy-sho" (buzzard) = Bomber  

"Lo-tso" (whale) = Battleship

"Toh-yil-kal" (Much Water) = River 

"Tsisi-be-wol-doni" (bird shooter) = Anti-Aircraft 

The Code Talkers worked eight hours a day with walkie-talkies under field conditions. They had to remember this new vocabulary, speak into the 80-pound radio sets, and quickly, accurately translate incoming messages. After training, code talkers were utilized to request medical supplies, coordinate troop movements, and relay operational orders.

I found the recollections of surviving code talkers incredibly interesting for painting a picture of life in war in which they contributed a vital part. There was real pride in accomplishment, as well as humor in their voices. They were at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Okinawa, the Solomon Islands, and many more places, bringing a tense aspect of the war alive for me. 

I recommend this for readers interested in the lives and contributions to our country by Native Americans, the development of a unique code, and World War II as told by those men who were there.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

McKay, Sinclair. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. 

For the first time, the an in-depth look people behind the super-secret operation that broke the Enigma code and shortened the war by two years, saving millions of lived. (previously reviewed here.) 

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma.   

The man and his team who cracked the German Enigma code in World War II to change the course of the War.

Happy reading.

Fred

 

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