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Code Talkers provided unique heroism

NAVAJO COUNTY, Ariz. — I guess it goes back to the first time I ever heard of the Code Talkers.

Every time I see the word “Navajo,” I think of those brave men.

We blazed through Navajo County today on our way home and the thought of the Code Talkers came pouring through.

Equally compelling, in my view, is thinking of the individual who conceived the mission our armed forces handed these brave Americans. Credit for employing the Navajo Code Talkers has gone to Philip Johnston, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. He was raised on the Navajo reservation as the son of missionaries … and spoke the language fluently.

The Navajo weren’t the first Native Americans to answer the call to become Code Talkers. Their language is believed to be the only one the enemy neverĀ  decoded.

The mission handed to Navajo Indians was to devise a code that would baffle the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Someone in the War Department figured that the enemy couldn’t possibly understand what was being said between Americans who spoke a language that was as unique as any on the planet.

Japanese cryptographers were able to decipher some coded messages during the war. So, to get around their knowledge of how to break our codes, U.S. war planners devised a code using the Navajo language.

Imagine sitting in a JapaneseĀ communications monitoring station, listening to individuals speaking to each other in a language you’ve never heard. You cannot identify it as, say, French, Russian or Spanish — let alone English.

That was the work of the Code Talkers. They’re all gone now. They were heroes in the absolute truest sense of the word.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/06/04/r-i-p-heroic-american/

I’ve long honored them for the heroism they performed. I also have honored Philip Johnston, who concocted this crazy notion of employing a language the enemy couldn’t decipher.

Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant.

 

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R.I.P., heroic American

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An American hero has died. He’s the last of a special brand of fighting men who, when duty called during our nation’s bloodiest war, answered in a unique and inspiring way.

Chester Nez, 93, died in Albuquerque, N.M. He was the last of the original 29 Code Talkers, Navajos who were tasked with developing a code that the enemy could not decipher.

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/06/last_of_world_war_iis_original.html#incart_river_default

I long have wondered something about the tactic developed during World War II that produced the Code Talkers: Who in the world at what was then called the War Department come up with this idea?

It was utterly brilliant.

Nez was one of 29 men who formed the first Code Talker unit. The Navajos developed a glossary that they expanded into a full vocabulary of terms they used to communicate with each other in the Pacific Theater of operations. The Japanese had been able to crack many encryptions. The Navajo code? Forget about it.

The Code Talkers were speaking in a language that had not put into writing. The Japanese would hear and could not tell what language it was, let alone what the U.S. Marines who spoke were saying.

“It’s one of the greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during World War II,” Mr. Nez said in a 2009 interview with the Associated Press. “We’re very proud of it.”

The next year, Mr. Nez said that “the Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did.”

The Code Talkers would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2001 and would be acclaimed for the genius they used in employing such an amazingly innovative tactic to use against a fierce enemy.

May this great hero, Chester Nez, now rest with the others who helped their nation win a titanic struggle.