C is for Code Talkers
Efficiency and communication are two words that can make or break a battle. During WWII, America struggled to find ways to contact soldiers on the battlefield without revealing their actions to their enemies. Philip Johnston’s suggestion was able to solve this problem and bring Native Americans into patriotism.
Johnston had grown up on a Navajo reservation and could speak the Navajo language fluently. Shortly after entering the army, he approached the Marine Corps with an idea: developing a code based on the Navajo language that could be easily transmitted and decrypted while also remaining a mystery to the Japanese and those who did not know the code. Previously, Cherokee and Choctaw soldiers had used their native languages to send messages during WWI and had been successful. Thus, the army accepted his suggestion and began to recruit Navajo natives to help develop the code.
To come up with the code, the Navajo Code Talkers came up with a Navajo word for each letter of the English alphabet. For example, the code for the letter C would be the world Mausi, which meant cat. Additionally, the code talkers came up with special words for military terms. The Choctaw word “tushka chipota” literally meant warrior soldier, but had a code meaning of just soldier, while the Navajo word “atsa” meant eagle literally but transport planes militarily. Charles Chibitty, a Comanche Code Talker, reflects that “Well, when they first got us in there for Code Talkers, we had to work that out among our own selves so, we didn’t have a word for tank. And the one said it’s like a [Comanche words] he said, it’s just like a turtle, you know. It has a hard shell and it moves and so we called it a wakaree´e, a turtle”, showing that to come up with the code, many natives had to be creative and use inspiration from their daily life.
During the war, Navajo and Hopi code talkers mostly served in the Pacific against Japan, while many Comanches fought in Europe. When used in action, the code turned out to be virtually meaningless to enemies. Even when the Japanese captured and tortured Navajo soldiers, they found that even they couldn’t decrypt it because they had not been trained in the code. The Navajo code talkers would go on to play important roles in every sea offensive in the Pacific, most notably in Guadalcanal (1942) and Iwo Jima (1945).
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It's quite ironic that the United States were so eager to use the Native American culture to help in both world wars, when they had for centuries committed genocide and other crimes against Native Americans in an attempt to americanize them. Even more specifically, Native Americans were forced to speak English and live in traditionally American family units in an attempt to break their culture. Despite this mistreatment, these Native descendants were still willing and eager to help the United States succeed during World War I and World War II. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking time to write this post. I agree with Teagan that it was rude and bizarre that we used Native American Culture and language to our befits. After we made it completely obvious over centuries and multiple times that we though there culture was stupid or dumb down. Now we are using it because its very hard for the Japanese to decrypted. Besides that how did they communicate numbers. They used words for alphabet what about to tell each-other how many tanks soldiers or inventory in general they had on the Germans. Also was this strictly the US code or did they use it talk with all Allies that included Russian and Britain ect. Lastly did women play a roll in code. I found a few sources that add onto your points in the article. Check them out!
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indian-code-talkers
http://mashable.com/2017/11/28/navajo-code-talkers/#Q9.avWsrwPqu