Navajo Code Talkers Break Silence for Veterans

[Roamer]

http://www.koat.com/news/21585221/detail.html

Navajo Code Talkers Break Silence For Veterans Day

13 Navajo Code Talkers Participate In Nation's Largest Veterans Day Parade

POSTED: 11:09 am MST November 11, 2009
UPDATED: 11:19 am MST November 11, 2009

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NEW YORK -- Thirteen of the Navajo Code Talkers are in New York City to take part for the first time in the nation's largest Veterans Day Parade.



They devised an unbreakable code from their ancient language that stymied the Japanese during World War II.


Only about 50 of the 400 Code Talkers are believed to be still alive, most living in the Navajo Nation reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many are frail or ill, with little time left to tell the world about their wartime contribution -- an unbreakable code from their ancient language that stymied the Japanese during World War II.


It wasn't until 2000 that the Congressional Gold Medal was bestowed on the survivors of the original 29 Code Talkers and silver medals on the rest.


At least five of the Code Talkers died just this year, creating an urgency for the Navajo Code Talkers Foundation to create a museum in their honor in New Mexico, near the Navajo capital of Window Rock, Ariz. It is slated to open sometime in 2012.

[Roamer]

I don't know if any of you know of these guys, but I've seen movies and read a lot about them.

They were true heroes!

[LiveLaughLuv]

Yes, I remember watching a movie about the code breakers and how they foiled the Japanese with talking in code..

I forgot the name of the movie but it was really interesting...Windtalkers or something...

I agree, they Navajo Nation were true heros who probably haven't been given the recognition they truly deserve...:give_rose:

[LiveLaughLuv]

Ahhh, my mind is still going strong...I did remember that movie title correctly. These Navajo men were depicted in the movie Windtalkers...


Plot Summary for
Windtalkers (2002) More at IMDbPro »
advertisementWWII. Joe Enders, a decorated Marine who is by-the-book to a fault, is just coming back on duty (by cheating on his medical tests). "Ox" Anderson, much greener, is also getting the same new task: Protect the Navajo codetalkers (Ben Yahzee and Charles Whitehorse, respectively). While Enders is initially frustrated with his assignment, his respect grows as the codetalkers prove their worth in the brutal battle to take Saipan. Written by Jon Reeves {jreeves@imdb.com}

In the close quarters and brutal fighting of the World War II Pacific Theater, the U.S. Intelligence services desperately seek a fool-proof encryption code, immune to the code breakers of the Japanese. The answer is soon discovered in the ancient language of the Navajo. Enlisted into the Marine Corps are several "Windtalkers" who are deployed to frontline areas in the Pacific, to use their language as an impossible-to-crack secret code. A drawback, however, is that the U.S. military soon puts forth a directive that the Windtalkers must never be captured alive by the enemy, so additional Marines are assigned to make certian that this directive is carried out to the letter. Written by Anthony Hughes {husnock31@hotmail.com}
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245562/plotsummary

[Roamer]

I saw that, too. Great movie, and the Windtalkers were well depicted.

[FoolsGold]

Actually, the United Nations of the Navajo declared war on Japan a few minutes before the US Congress did even though the US had repeatedly punished the Navajo children for speaking their own language in schools.

The Navajo language had not been studied by many anthropologists and none of those who had studied it were either German or Japanese so it looked like it would be fairly safe to use Navajo as a "real time" radio language when there was no time to use codebooks.

The "bodyguards" who accompanied the codetalkers were actually "codeguards". Officially the bodyguards were to protect the Navaho Indians from enemy attackers and from any American troops who might be confused or doubtful as to the loyalty of the Navajo. In actuality, the bodyguards were to protect the codebook from being captured by the enemy. Since the "codebook" was in the brain of the Navaho, the real orders of the bodyguards was to shoot the Navaho if capture by the enemy appeared to be imminent. And in keeping with the way the American Army bumbled through World War Two, the officers believed that the Navajo Codetalkers didn't know this. They knew!! You had a job to do and you did it. Period. When an artillery unit received firing orders for positions in a 270 degree arc, the gunners knew the battle was not going well but there was no time to worry about being surrounded by the enemy. You received your coordinates and you lobbed shells onto those positions. Artillery men knew they might be killing their own or they might be killing the enemy... it made no difference. You had a job to do and you did it. It was the same with the Navajo in advanced units. Calling in artillery fire as the enemy approached had to be done. It was done in Navajo code and the Navajo code-talkers knew that codebooks were not to be captured. The codetalkers knew what their "escorts" orders were. The Codetalkers had a job to do and they did it. Just like anyone else.

The Germans and Japanese had listened to the radio traffic and had figured out that it was Navajo. One Navajo who was captured very early in the war was told to translate a tape but despite beatings he did not reveal anything. He was left out in the cold and eventually his feet froze to the ground. There is some question as to whether he could have translated anything anyway, since the code phrases were not known to him. After all, things like tanks, trucks, machine gun, etc. were not words in the Navajo language anyway. He would have no way to have known that Turtle was the word for Tank, but he might have figured it out. Messages could be encoded and decoded in "real time" and this did help, but it was not all that earthshaking an achievement.

Alot of secrets of world war two persist. Supposedly our Norden bombsight was so valuable that we would courtmartial any pilot who crashed his bomber without first destroying the bombsight so it would not fall into enemy hands. In reality, the German bombsight was far superior to the Norden bombsight anyway.

[texanne]

There was an old war movie that showed how they were able to fool the enemy long before the latest one. I used to buy G.I. Joe dolls for the grandsons. I was thrilled to find the Navajo ones that actually "talked". They had some of the phrases used to call in airstrikes, etc. Those were the ones I rescued and put in storage for the boys after they tired of them....along with the Ernie Pyle ones, etc. I was so happy when people were reminded of their contribution to our country.

[packy]

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/01/22/news/indiansbzbigs.txt

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

Walter Fleming, associate professor and author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Native American History," said the World War II movie "sucks."

He joked that it put an "Indian-deprived" actor, Nicholas Cage, and his "angst" at the forefront.

The history of Indian code-talkers in war is more complex and interesting, he told a crowd of 50 people Tuesday at the Bozeman Public Library.

His talk, "10 Things About Native Americans I Learned While Looking Up Something Else," was sponsored by the American Association of University Wom

Not all code-talkers were Navajo, said Fleming, a member of the Kickapoo Kansas tribe who grew up on the Crow reservation in Montana.

Choctaw, Comanche, Sioux and Crow soldiers also used their languages to help the U.S. Army communicate secretly and thwart enemy spying, he said. The first to do so were eight Choctaw Indians, who helped the Allies outmaneuver the Germans in the Argonne.

Barney Old Coyote, a Crow Indian, flew more than 50 missions during World War II in Europe, and communicated with his brother Henry in another bomber, Fleming said.

The Navajo used a "code within a code" to foil the Japanese in the Pacific. In Navajo they called the United States "our mother," Australia "rolled hat" and China "braided hair."

(More at link)

[Claycat]

This is fascinating!

[Jute]

From:

VAnguard
Inside: Claims Task Force Report, 4 ✩ Day of Giving, 7 ✩ Disaster
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
NOVEMBER 2001
A proud history of service — page 8
Native American Veterans

The Unbreakable Code

Soldiers like Van Barfoot, a Choctaw from Mississippi who served with the 45th Infantry Division in World War II, exemplify the values esteemed by Native American cultures—honor, pride and courage. With his platoon engaging an entrenched enemy force near Carano, Italy, on May 23, 1944,
Barfoot single-handedly silenced three successive enemy machine gun positions and captured 17 prisoners.

When the enemy launched an armored counterattack, he took up an exposed position in front of three advancing Mark VI tanks, and using a bazooka, disabled the lead tank and stalled the enemy advance. He later carried
two seriously wounded men 1,700 yards to safety. For his actions, he was awarded the nation’s highest military honor, the Congressional Medal of
Honor.

Navajo Code Talkers also exemplified those values. They used a code based on their native language to transmit secret messages between military
commanders and advancing Marine units in the South Pacific. It was a
code Japanese forces were unable to crack.

Military experts have credited these brave radio operators with contributing to U.S. victories in the battles for Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Okinawa. In the first 48 hours of the assault on Iwo Jima, the Code Talkers transmitted about 800 error-free messages.

The first 29 Code Talkers recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps developed the code at Camp Elliott, Calif., in May 1942. They also compiled a dictionary of more than 400 Navajo words to represent military terms that didn’t exist in their language—a dictionary each Code Talker had to memorize.

Code Talkers were sworn to secrecy; it wasn’t until 1968 that the Pentagon declassified the Navajo code. In September 1992, they received recognition for their efforts when the Department of Defense dedicated an exhibit in their honor at the Pentagon.

More recently, this past July, President George W. Bush presented Congressional Gold Medals to the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers. Chuck Hedin, an addiction therapist at the Denver VA Medical Center and only nephew of John Willie Jr., one of the original 29, attended the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. “You could almost feel the intensity,” he said, describing the mood in the crowded room. “It was a very proud moment for all of us, but also sadness for those who couldn’t be there. I think a lot of people felt that way.”

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:xPYLLOPjIg8J:www1.va.gov/opa/feature/vanguard/01NovVG.pdf+why+wasn%27t+the+Congressional+Gold+Si lver+Medal+bestowed+on+WWll+codetalkers+until+2000 %3F&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us#8

[Roamer]

God love each and every one of them! We have a lot of heroes in our country, but these men deserve to be recognized!

[texanne]

Packy, thanks for your informative post. I did not know about the other tribes. Hip Hip Hooray for the Choctaws. I have just a tad of Choctaw in me and never hear anything exciting about them.