Phillip Johnston was the son of a missionary to the Navajos. Growing up, he learned the language and became one of the few non-natives to speak Navajo.
He had been a WWI veteran and knew how important it was to our country to have a code that could not be broken by the enemy. Phillip also knew that the Choctaw Indian language had been used during WWI and in 1942; he suggested to Major General Clayton Vogel that they should use the Navajo’s language as code in WWII.
The Navajo’s language is an unwritten language which is extremely complex. Its syntax, tonal qualities and dialects can be extremely baffling to anyone who hasn’t been taught the language. Another advantage to the Navajo language is that they could decode messages very fast.
Men who knew both English and Navajo were chosen and they worked together to create the code within their own language. In May of 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits were sent to Camp Pendleton and received training in Morse code, semaphore, military-style messages, wire laying and to learn all about radios. Later, they created their own dictionary.
The Code Talkers were so vital to the Marine Corps during WWII that they had one or two men guarding them at all times. From 1942 to 1945, they took part in every US Marine assault conducted in the Pacific. As Major General Howard Connor said, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would have never taken Iwo Jima”. The General had six Navajo Code talkers working around the clock during the first 48 hours of battle and they sent, coded and decoded a total of 800 messages, all without errors!
There were about 300 Code Talkers. All were volunteers and none were drafted. Chester Nez, the last of the original Code Talkers died this year on June 5th. Let’s all take a moment and thank them for their service.
