Code talker

Code talkers are people in the 20th century who used obscure languages as a means of secret communication during wartime. The term is now usually associated with the United States soldiers during the world wars who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular, there were approximately 400–500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted these messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formal or informally developed codes built upon their native languages. Their service improved the speed of encryption of communications at both ends in front line operations during World War II.

The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater. Code talking, however, was pioneered by Cherokee and Choctaw Indians during World War I.

Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Lakota,^[1] Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers. Soldiers of Basque ancestry were also used for code talking by the U.S. Marines during World War II in areas where other Basque speakers were not expected to be operating.

Cherokee code talkers

The first known use of Native Americans in the American military to transmit messages under fire was a group of Cherokee troops used by the American 30th Infantry Division serving alongside the British during the Second Battle of the Somme. According to the Division Signal Officer, this took place in September 1918. Their unit was under British command at the time.^[2]

Choctaw code talkers

In the days of World War I, company commander Captain Lawrence of the U.S. Army overheard Solomon Louis and Mitchell Bobb conversing in the Choctaw language. He found eight Choctaw men in the battalion.^[3] Eventually, fourteen Choctaw men in the Army's 36th Infantry Division trained to use their language in code. They helped the American Expeditionary Forces win several key battles in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, during the final big German push of the war. Within 24 hours of the Choctaw language being pressed into service, the tide of the battle had turned. In less than 72 hours, the Germans were retreating and the Allies were in full attack.^[3] These soldiers are now known as the Choctaw code talkers.

Comanche code talkers

Adolf Hitler knew about the successful use of code talkers during World War I. He sent a team of some thirty anthropologists to the United States to learn Native American languages before the outbreak of World War II.^[4] It proved too difficult for them to learn the many languages and dialects that existed. Because of Nazi German anthropologists' efforts to learn the languages, the U.S. Army did not implement a large-scale code talker program in the European Theater of the war. Fourteen Comanche code talkers did take part in the Invasion of Normandy, and continued to serve in the 4th Infantry Division during additional European operations.^[5] Comanche of the 4th Signal Company compiled a vocabulary of over 100 code terms using words or phrases in their own language. Using a substitution method similar to the Navajo, the Comanche code word for tank was "turtle", bomber was "pregnant airplane", machine gun was "sewing machine" and Adolf Hitler was referred to as "crazy white man".^[6] Two Comanche code-talkers were assigned to each regiment, the rest to 4th Infantry Division headquarters. Shortly after landing on Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, the Comanche began transmitting messages. Some were wounded but none killed.^[6]

In 1989, the French government awarded the Comanche code-talkers the Chevalier of the National Order of Merit. On November 30, 1999, the United States Department of Defense presented Charles Chibitty with the Knowlton Award.^[6][7]

Meskwaki code talkers

Meskwaki men used their language against the Germans while fighting in the US Army in North Africa. Twenty-seven Meskwaki, then 16% of Iowa's Meskwaki population, enlisted in the U.S. Army together in January 1941.^[8]

Basque code talkers

In May 1942, upon meeting about 60 U.S. Marines of Basque ancestry in a San Francisco camp, Captain Frank D. Carranza conceived the idea of using the Basque language for codes.^[9][10][11] His superiors were wary as there were known settlements of Basque in the Pacific region. There were 35 Basque Jesuits in Hiroshima, led by Pedro Arrupe. In China and the Philippines, there was a colony of Basque jai alai players, and there were Basque supporters of Falange in Asia. The American Basque code talkers were kept away from these theaters; they were initially used in tests and in transmitting logistic information for Hawaii and Australia.

On August 1, 1942, Lieutenants Nemesio Aguirre, Fernández Bakaicoa and Juanna received a Basque-coded message from San Diego for Admiral Chester Nimitz, warning him of the upcoming Operation Apple to remove the Japanese from the Solomon Islands. They also translated the start date, August 7, for the attack on Guadalcanal. As the war extended over the Pacific, there was a shortage of Basque speakers and the US military came to prefer the parallel program based on the use of Navajo speakers.

Navajo code talkers

Alphabets (English)	Code Language (English)	Code Language (Navajo)	Modern spelling
A	Ant	Wol-la-chee	Wóláchííʼ
B	Bear	Shush	Shash
C	Cat	Moasi	Mósí
D	Deer	Be	Bįįh
E	Elk	Dzeh	Dzeeh
F	Fox	Ma-e	Mąʼii
G	Goat	Klizzie	Tłʼízí
H	Horse	Lin	Łį́į́ʼ
I	Ice	Tkin	Tin
J	Jackass	Tkele-cho-gi	Téliichoʼí
K	Kid	Klizzie-yazzi	Tłʼízí yázhí
L	Lamb	Dibeh-yazzi	Dibé yázhí
M	Mouse	Na-as-tso-si	Naʼastsʼǫǫsí
N	Nut	Nesh-chee	Neeshchʼííʼ
O	Owl	Ne-ash-jah	Néʼéshjaaʼ
P	Pig	Bi-sodih	Bisóodi
Q	Quiver	Ca-yeilth	kʼaaʼ yeiłtįįh
R	Rabbit	Gah	Gah
S	Sheep	Dibeh	Dibé
T	Turkey	Than-zie	Tązhii
U	Ute	No-da-ih	Nóódaʼí
V	Victor	a-keh-di-glini	Akʼehdidlíní
W	Weasel	Gloe-ih	Dlǫ́ʼii
X	Cross	Al-an-as-dzoh	Ałnáʼázdzoh
Y	Yucca	Tsah-as-zih	Tsáʼásziʼ
Z	Zinc	Besh-do-gliz	Béésh dootłʼizh

Philip Johnston, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles,^[12] proposed the use of Navajo to the United States Marine Corps at the beginning of World War II. Johnston, a World War I veteran, was raised on the Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary to the Navajo. He was one of the few non-Navajo who spoke the language fluently.

Because Navajo has a complex grammar, it is not nearly mutually intelligible enough with even its closest relatives within the Na-Dene family to provide meaningful information. It was still an unwritten language, and Johnston thought Navajo could satisfy the military requirement for an undecipherable code. Navajo was spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, made it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. One estimate indicates that at the outbreak of World War II, fewer than 30 non-Navajo could understand the language.^[13]

Early in 1942, Johnston met with Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and his staff. Johnston staged tests under simulated combat conditions which demonstrated that Navajo men could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds, versus the 30 minutes required by machines at that time. The idea was accepted, with Vogel recommending that the Marines recruit 200 Navajo. The first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp in May 1942. This first group created the Navajo code at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California.^[14]

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 were mainly Marines, although some did fight as military men and soldiers. 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).^[15] Several of these portmanteaus (such as gofasters referring to running shoes, ink sticks for pens) entered Marine Corps vocabulary. They are commonly used today to refer to the appropriate objects.^[16]

A codebook was developed to teach the many relevant words and concepts to new initiates. The text was for classroom purposes only, and was never to be taken into the field. The code talkers memorized all these variations and practiced their rapid use under stressful conditions during training. Uninitiated Navajo speakers would have no idea what the code talkers' messages meant; they would hear only truncated and disjointed strings of individual, unrelated nouns and verbs.

The Navajo code talkers were commended for their skill, speed, and accuracy demonstrated throughout the war. At the Battle of Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. These six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error. Connor later stated, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."^[14]

As the war progressed, additional code words were added on and incorporated program-wide. In other instances, informal short-cut code words were devised for a particular campaign and not disseminated beyond the area of operation. To ensure a consistent use of code terminologies throughout the Pacific Theater, representative code talkers of each of the U.S. Marine divisions met in Hawaii to discuss shortcomings in the code, incorporate new terms into the system, and update their codebooks. These representatives in turn trained other code talkers who could not attend the meeting. For example, the Navajo word for buzzard, jeeshóóʼ, was used for bomber, while the code word used for submarine, béésh łóóʼ, meant iron fish in Navajo.^[17] The last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers who developed the code, Chester Nez, died on June 4, 2014.^[18]

The deployment of the Navajo code talkers continued through the Korean War and after, until it was ended early in the Vietnam War. The Navajo code is the only spoken military code never to have been deciphered.^[15]

Seminole code talkers

The last surviving Seminole code talker, Edmond Harjo of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, died on March 31, 2014, at the age of 96.^[19][20] Harjo had served as far afield as Normandy and the Battle of Iwo Jima during the war.^[20] His biography was recounted by Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony honoring Harjo and other code talkers at the U.S. Capitol on November 20, 2013.^[19][20][21]

Nubian code talkers

In the 1973 Arab–Israeli War Egypt employed Nubian speaking Nubian people as codetalkers.^[22][23][24]

Cryptographic properties

Non-speakers would find it extremely difficult to accurately distinguish unfamiliar sounds used in these languages. Additionally, a speaker who has acquired a language during their childhood sounds distinctly different from a person who acquired the same language in later life, thus reducing the chance of successful impostors sending false messages. Finally, the additional layer of an alphabet cypher was added to prevent interception by native speakers not trained as code talkers, in the event of their capture by the Japanese. A similar system employing Welsh was used by British forces, but not to any great extent during World War II. Welsh was used more recently in the Balkan peace-keeping efforts for non-vital messages.^[25]

Navajo was an attractive choice for code use because few people outside the Navajo had learned to speak the language. Virtually no books in Navajo had been published. Outside of the language, the Navajo spoken code was not very complex by cryptographic standards. It would likely have been broken if a native speaker and trained cryptographers could have worked together effectively. The Japanese had an opportunity to attempt this when they captured Joe Kieyoomia in the Philippines in 1942 during the Bataan Death March. Kieyoomia, a Navajo sergeant in the U.S. Army, but not a code talker, was ordered to interpret the radio messages later in the war. However, since Kieyoomia had not participated in the code training, the messages made no sense to him. When he reported that he could not understand the messages, his captors tortured him.^[26] The Japanese Imperial Army and Navy never cracked the spoken code.

Post-war recognition

The Navajo code talkers received no recognition until the declassification of the operation in 1968.^[27] In 1982, the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who also named August 14, 1982 as "Navajo Code Talkers Day".^[28][29]

On December 21, 2000 the U.S. Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, Public Law 106-554, 114 Statute 2763, which awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the original twenty-nine World War II Navajo code talkers, and Silver Medals to each person who qualified as a Navajo code talker (approximately 300). In July 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush personally presented the Medal to four surviving original code talkers (the fifth living original code talker was not able to attend) at a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. Gold medals were presented to the families of the deceased 24 original code talkers.^[30][31]

On September 17, 2007, 18 Choctaw code talkers were posthumously awarded the Texas Medal of Valor from the Adjutant General of the State of Texas for their World War II service.^[32]

On November 15, 2008, The Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-420), was signed into law by President George W. Bush, which recognizes every Native American code talker who served in the United States military during WWI or WWII (with the exception of the already-awarded Navajo) with a Congressional Gold Medal, designed as distinct for each tribe.^[33]

In popular culture

• The movie Never So Few (1959) features Charles Bronson as Sgt. John Danforth, a Navajo code talker.
• The 2002 movie Windtalkers was a fictional drama based on the historic Navajo code talkers enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II
• Code Talker (2006), a historical novel, portrays a group of Navajo serving in the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater during World War II.^[34]

• Chester Nez (January 23, 1921 – June 4, 2014), the last survivor of the original Navajo code talkers in World War II, wrote a memoir about their work, Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.^[35] He helped to develop the code and used it under battle conditions to prove that it would work.

See also

• Native Americans and World War II
• Choctaw code talkers of World War I
• Code-talker paradox
• Navajo I
• Navajo language
• Navajo Nation
• Navajo people
• Southern Athabaskan languages
• United States Army Indian Scouts

Notes

References

Bibliography

Web

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Code talkers.

• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Code Talkers
• Official website of the Navajo Code talkers

Denise Winterman (19 May 2014). "World War One: The original code talkers". BBC News. Retrieved 19 May 2014. 

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