Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Navajo Code Talkers

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Secrecy is a huge part of military success. You want to be able to communicate with your own forces without the enemy finding out what your plans are. As America entered World War II, they were in need of a method of communication that couldn’t be cracked by Germany or Japan. They found the answer they were looking for in the languages of Native Americans. Learn more about Navajo Code Talkers and the other Native American languages used in World War II Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secrecy is a huge part of military success. You want to be able to communicate with your own forces without the enemy finding out what your plans are. As America entered World War II, they were in need of a method of communication that couldn't be cracked by Germany or Japan. They found the answer they were looking for in the languages of Native Americans. Learn more about Navajo Code Talkers and other Native American languages used in World War II on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep? only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow?

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Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by Audible.com. My audiobook recommendation today is Code Talker, the first and only memoir by one of the original Navajo Code Talkers of World War II by Chester Ness and Judith Shees Avila. His name wasn't Chester Ness. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. In boarding school at Fort Defiance,

he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers sought to rid him of his cultures and traditions. But discrimination didn't stop Chester from answering the call to defend his country after Pearl Harbor. For the Navajo have always been warriors, and his upbringing on a New Mexico reservation, gave him the strength, both physical and mental, to excel as a Marine.

During World War II, the Japanese had managed to crack every code the United States used, but when the Marines turned to its Navajo recruits to develop and implement a secret military language, they created the only unbroken code in modern warfare and helped assure victory for the United States over Japan and the South Pacific. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the show notes. The idea of using Native American languages as a form of military code didn't begin in World War II. It actually began in the First World War. The Germans during World War I had no problem understanding English,

and they had managed to break every American code. An American army officer named Colonel Alfred Wainwright Bloor of the 142nd Infantry had several members of the Choctaw Nation in his unit. One day he overheard them talking to each other in the Choctaw language. He realized he couldn't understand what they were saying, and if he couldn't understand, then the Germans probably couldn't understand either. He gathered up all the Choctaw soldiers and told them of his idea, and they were on board. They developed a code based on the Choctaw language, and then distributed the Choctaw speakers so there was one in each company.

On October 26 of 1918, just two weeks before the end of the war, they managed to execute a withdrawal of two companies in the second battalion, and the Germans didn't suspect a thing. A German officer who was captured later confessed that they had no clue what the war was the same. the chalk-taught speakers were saying, and wiretaps on the American phone lines didn't give them any advantage. The experiment of using chalk-taugh speakers during World War I was a success, but it was very limited. The program didn't even get started until the last month of the war, so there wasn't much opportunity to use it. The idea of using Native American languages during the Second World War came up quite early in the American involvement in the conflict.

A man by the name of Philip Johnston, who lived in Los Angeles, came up with the idea. Johnson had grown up in a missionary family who lived in the Navajo nation in Arizona. He learned the Navajo language as a child when he played with other children on the reservation who spoke the language. Johnston realized that Navajo might make a great basis for a military code. Navajo had a lot going for it. For starters, it's a fairly complex language. It had a very complex grammar and sentence structure. Second, Navajo can't be understood by any other Native American groups.

Even the closest related native languages can't understand Navajo. Third, Navajo wasn't well-studied or known beyond the Navajo nation. It was estimated that fewer than 30 non-Navaho people in the world knew the Navajo language, and none of those people were in Japan. Finally, at the time, Navajo wasn't a written language, so there were no books that could be used to help decipher the language. Johnston, who was a civilian, pitched the idea to the U.S. Marine Corps, and a demonstration was held to show how Navajo would work in the field for transmitted coded orders.

The Navajo speakers were able to transmit a three-line message in 20 seconds. The competing code machines took 30 minutes. Based on the demonstration, the Marine Corps agreed to go ahead with a pilot program. 29 Navajo recruits hopped on a bus in Fort Defiance, Arizona, and traveled to basic training in San Diego for eight weeks. They graduated as the first all-Navaho platoon in Marine history. From there, they immediately went to Camp Elliott in San Diego, where they began the work of creating a code based. on Navajo. The code talkers didn't speak conversational Navajo during combat. They used a code that was based on the Navajo language. The first part of the code was creating words that

represented the letters of the alphabet. They picked English words that started with the letter of the alphabet, but used Navajo words to communicate it. For example, for the letter A, they used three different words, Ant, Apple, and Axe. The Navajo words for them would be Wollachi for Ant, B. Lasana for Apple and C. Nill for Axe. It would also have been time-consuming to spell out absolutely everything, so they developed several hundred words for commonly used terms and phrases which would be used, including military ranks, ships, airplanes, and weapons. For example, the Navajo Code for submarine was Bechlo, which means iron fish. The word for bomber was the Navajo word for buzzard, and the word for a colonel was the word for Silver Eagle. The first group of 29 code talkers,

developed a book that would be used by subsequent code talkers who would then go through the program. However, the book was never allowed to leave the base. Everyone who graduated from the program had to memorize everything. The end result was that even if a native Navajo speaker were to overhear two code talkers speaking, they would only hear a collection of words that wouldn't make any sense because they weren't actual sentences. The decision was made to only use the Navajo Code Talkers in the Pacific Theater. While in the Pacific, they proved vital in almost every battle. At Guadacanaloo, Guam, Iwojima, and Saipan, the Navajo co-talkers were vital in every battle.

At Iwojima, six co-talkers worked nonstop for over 48 hours at the start of the battle, transmitting 800 messages. Major Howard Connor, head of the 5th Marine Division Signal Corps, said, quote, were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwojima, unquote. Eventually, the code talkers had to be assigned. a personal guard. The initial reason for the guard was to protect the co-talkers from other American soldiers. There were several cases where they were thought to be Japanese spies. The second reason for the guards was to ensure that the co-talkers would never fall into enemy hands. Their instructions were to shoot the co-talkers rather than let them be captured. But thankfully,

that never happened. In total, there were over 400 Navajo who served as co-talkers. They continued to be used during the Korean conflict, and the program was eventually faced. out in the early 1960s. During that time, the entire program was considered secret, and none of the co-talkers could talk about their service in the war. The program was finally declassified in 1968. Recognition of the co-talkers was belated, but eventually acknowledged. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan named August 14th of 1982 as Navajo Co-Talkers Day and issued the Co-Tockers a certificate of recognition. In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a law that awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the original 29 Code Talkers and silver medals to the other Code Talkers.

Arizona has created a state holiday, and there are plans for the creation of a Code Talker Museum. As of the day I am recording this, there are only four surviving Navajo Code Talkers, all of which are in their 90s. Before I close, I should note that while Navajo Co-Talkers were the largest and best-known group of Code Talkers from World War II, they were not the only tribe that had Code Talkers. There were 14 Native American languages used for code talking during the war by both Americans and Canadians, including Lakota, Meswaukee, Mohat, Tingleit, Hopi, Cree, and Crow. Most notably, 14 Comanchee code talkers were used on D-Day during the invasion of Normandy. In 1989, they were awarded the rank of Chavilliers of the National Order of Merit in France.

All of the codes used by other Native American languages were designed on the system developed by the Navajo. In 2008, code talkers from both world wars and from every Native American tribe were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Computer is an advanced cryptography of rendered code talkers obsolete. It's now possible to easily communicate without fear of enemy interception. Nonetheless, while it was in use, Native American Code Talkers had the only military code never to have been broken. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson.

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