![]() That alphabet uses words to represent letters, e.g., Fox for the letter F. The developers of the Navajo code modeled the alphabet portion on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. At that time the code talkers called themselves “radiomen”. To relay the messages they were encoding, they had to learn to operate three types of radios. The Marines trained approximately 400 Navajos as code talkers. In May 1942, the first Navajo recruits attended boot camp they then moved to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, to create the Navajo Code Talkers Dictionary. If you’re fluent in Spanish, you might be able to muddle along in Portuguese after some basic lessons. Navajo also benefited by being so unlike other Native American languages that there was no language similar to it. Navajo was reportedly the only language the German anthropologists had yet to learn. Hitler had heard of the possibility of using Native American languages for codes prior to the United States’ entry into the war, and had sent a number of German anthropologists to the United States prior to WWII to learn Native American languages. The Marines were lucky in 1942 only an estimated 28 non-Navajo Americans could speak the extremely difficult Navajo language! At that time, most Navajos were fluent in their native language. In a memo to the Commandant of the Marine Corps in early 1942, Navajo was declared uniquely suited to succeed more than some other languages proposed for use. Philip Johnston, a son of missionaries who had grown up on the Navajo reservation, originally recommended Navajo to the Marines as a language well suited for cryptology. The Marines chose these Navajos for their ability to speak their native language, Diné bizaad (Navajo), for code talking. ![]() The United States Marines recruited several hundred Navajos for duty in the Pacific region. More Native Code Talkers are Used in World War IIĪfter the United States entered World War II in December 1941, more Armed Forces used code talking units with each unit composed of members of a specific American Indian tribe. ![]() However, the German Army- which captured about one out of four messengers-never broke the Indians’ “code.” Previous to their arrival in France, the Germans had broken every American code used, resulting in the deaths of many Soldiers. Soldiers from other tribes, including the Cheyenne, Comanche, Cherokee, Osage and Yankton Sioux also were enlisted to communicate as code talkers. They helped the American Expeditionary Force win several key battles in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign in France, the final big German push of the war. The team transmitted messages relating to troop movements and their own tactical plans in their native tongue. Two Indian officers were selected to supervise a communications system staffed by 18 Choctaw. In France during World War I, the 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, had a company of Indians who spoke 26 languages and dialects. Army in World War I even though their lack of citizenship exempted them from the draft. Image: The Choctaw Code Talkers enlisted in the U.S. Because few non-Indians knew these difficult native languages, which in many cases had no written form, they provided ideal codes for relaying secret operational orders. They spoke in their own languages and dialects, all of which were indecipherable by enemy forces. “Code talkers” became the term used to describe Native American soldiers from various Indian tribes who communicated on radios, telephones and telegraph during World Wars I and II. In honor of Navajo Code Talkers Day this past week on August 14, Government Book Talk explores some Federal publications that utilize American Indian traditions and culture to combat serious problems of the past and present.
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