Name________________________

Code Talkers

During both World Wars, hundreds of Native Americans

joined the US Armed Forces and used their traditional
tribal languages as weapons. How did this system work?
How effective was it?

Almost no one would dispute that communication is critical

in times of war. When the United States entered World War
II, the dilemma of being able to send and receive sensitive
messages, securely, and across two fronts, posed a problem. Picture Courtesy of the USMC Archives

In the Pacific, Japanese cryptographers, many of whom had been educated in the US and were
fluent in English, proved astonishingly adept at cracking US military codes. Japanese forces
often knew about American plans in advance, and military leaders scrambled to find an
alternative.

America’s answer came from an unlikely source. Philip Johnston was a civil engineer who had
grown up on a Navajo Reservation as a child. Johnston believed that the Navajo language,
which was unique to tribal reservations, could solve the military’s quandary. Outsiders typically
found the language incomprehensible because, depending on pronunciation, a Navajo word
could have up to four distinct meanings. The verb forms were even more complex.

At the time, no Navajo alphabet existed, meaning the language, in effect, did not exist in any
type of written form. As a result, Johnston surmised that a military code, based on the Navajo
language, would be unbreakable. While the military was initially skeptical, the idea proved to be
ingenious.

Recruits from the Navajo tribe developed a two-part code with a 26-letter phonetic alphabet.
The alphabet used Navajo names for 18 animals plus eight words such as “ice” (I), “Ute” (U),
“victor” (V), and “zinc” (Z). The second part consisted of more than 200 English words which
were replaced by their Navajo synonyms.

Before the implementation of the Navajo code, conventional

Words to watch for Marine Corps communications involved a four-hour encoding
and deciphering process which required sophisticated electronic
adept quandary equipment. The Navajo method, which relied on the sender’s and
the receiver’s brains, mouths, and ears, could be done in less
conventional thwart
than three minutes. In training and combat alike, the code
talkers’ also proved much more reliable and accurate.

Navajo code talkers served in all six Marine divisions in the Pacific, sending messages about
troop movements, enemy positions, and other valuable information. The soldiers earned high
levels of praise for their performance in the Solomons, the Marianas, and at Iwo Jima.

Of their service at Iwo Jima, Signal Officer Major Howard Conner stated, “The entire operation
was directed by Navajo code. . .They sent and received over 800 messages without an error.
Were it not for the Navajo code talkers, the Marines never would have taken Iwo Jima.”

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In Europe, the Germans made attempts to thwart the use of code talkers before the war even
began. Fully aware of the role that Cherokee and Choctaw code talkers played during the First
World War, the Nazis sent a team of anthropologists into the US to study Native American
languages. However, this task was futile due to the large number of languages and dialects. US
intelligence learned of the Nazi operation and, in turn, limited the use of code talkers in the
European theater.

A total of 17 Comanche were recruited to develop an unbreakable Comanche-language code that

would be centered around 250 specialized military terms. These terms would be used in
combination with standard Comanche to relay messages quickly and efficiently. The coded
terms included “tutsahkuna' tawo”' (sewing-machine gun rather than machine guns),
“wakaree'e” (turtle rather than tanks), and “Po'sa taiboo” (Crazy White Man rather than Hitler).

In June of 1944, 14 Comanche code talkers participated in the landing at Utah Beach during the
invasion of Normandy, France. The group helped to establish and maintain telephone lines and
sent secure messages via field telephone and radio. The code talkers went on to serve in
Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany as the war dragged on. They provided invaluable services
to the US Army during battles at Cherbourg, St. Lo, Paris, the Siegfried Line, the Huertgen
Forest, and the Siege of Bastogne. Several of the code talkers were wounded, but thankfully,
none were killed. Like the Navajo, the Comanche code was never broken.

In the years following the war, almost nothing was known about the program as it remained in
place and top secret up until the Vietnam War. The first presidential recognition came in 1971
when President Richard M. Nixon presented the Navajo code talkers with a certificate of
appreciation for their “patriotism, resourcefulness, and courage.” Nixon noted that the code
talkers gave the US Marine Corps an unbreakable means of battlefield communication, thus
saving thousands of American lives and perplexing the Japanese military until the very end.

Perhaps the success of the code talkers was best characterized by one of their foes. After the
war, a former Japanese general noted that the US Marine codes baffled even the most skilled
cryptographers. When the interviewer informed him that it was based on a Native American
language, the general replied, “Thank you. That is a puzzle I thought would never be solved.”

Around 420 Navajos served as code talkers in WWII - More than any other Native group.

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Multiple Choice: Select the choice that completes the statement or answers the question.

1.______ Which of the following statements is NOT accurate?

a. Outsiders typically found the Navajo language incomprehensible.
b. Depending on pronunciation, a Navajo word could have up to four distinct meanings.
c. Navajo verb forms are extremely complex.
d. The US military was eager to develop and test the Navajo code system.

2.______ Which of the following statements is true?

a. Recruits from the Navajo tribe developed a two-part code with a 36-letter phonetic alphabet.
b. The phonetic alphabet used Navajo names for 18 different animals.
c. The Navajo code consisted of more than 200 Spanish words which were replaced by their
Navajo synonyms.
d. Navajo code talkers could typically send and decipher a message in around 15 minutes.

3.______ Which of the following statements is an opinion?

a. Navajo code talkers served in all six Marine divisions in the Pacific.
b. The code talkers earned high levels of praise for their performance in the Solomons, the
Marianas, and at Iwo Jima.
c. At Iwo Jima, the code talkers sent and received over 800 messages without an error.
d. Were it not for the Navajo code talkers, the Marines never would have taken Iwo Jima.

4.______ Which tribe contributed a group of code talkers who participated in the
Normandy Landing?
a. Navajo c. Apache
b. Comanche d. Arapaho

5.______ The Comanche phrase “Po'sa taiboo” was used as a substitute for
a. Tank c. Adolf Hitler
b. Battalion d. Machine Guns

Vocabulary: Match each word with its correct definition. Consider how the word is used in the lesson.
This might help you define each term. Use a dictionary to help if necessary.

a. adept d. anthropologist
b. quandary e. thwart
c. conventional

6.______ very skilled or proficient at something

7.______ to oppose a plan, attempt, or ambition successfully

8.______ a person who studies human societies and cultures and their development

9.______ a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation

10._____ based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed

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