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American Indians' Secret Role in WW II

Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary

On July 26, 2001, five surviving Navajo Marines were awarded Congressional Gold Medals for their service in devising the now-famous code used by Navajo "code talkers" during WWII (24 other medals were awarded posthumously). Their story was told in the film "Windtalkers."

During WWII, the US Marine Corps needed a code that the Japanese couldn't break (they had succeeded in breaking various US Army and Air Corps codes). In 1942, the Marines were approached by Philip Johnston, a WWI veteran who had grown up on a Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary and who recognized that the complexity and obscurity of the unwritten Navajo language made it the perfect basis for a code. After a field test in which Navajo-speaking coders were able to transmit and decode messages in seconds that machines needed half an hour to do, the Marines agreed to try Johnston's idea.

Twenty-nine Navajos were recruited to develop the code, and eventually close to 400 Navajos used it. The code matched Navajo words with the first letter of their English equivalents (so the Navajo word tsah, which means "needle," was used to represent the letter "n"). Not all words had to be broken down into individual letters, though; the Navajo word for "buzzard" meant "bomber," and "silver eagle" meant "colonel."

The code was credited with playing a decisive role in the American victory at Iwo Jima, as well as elsewhere in the Pacific theater. Indeed, it was so successful that the Marines insisted on keeping it classified until 1968, in case they needed to use it again. Only then were the code talkers allowed to speak of their wartime experiences and heroic role. Today, however, the Pentagon tour includes an exhibit on the code talkers.