Military Duty

Military Duty

Duties

The Navajo were used to transmit and relay messages during WWll for the U.S. Marines. They were assigned two to a military unit with one to run the radio while the other one would relay and receive the message. The messages were sent in the Navajo code and translated into English. The code talkers improved the speed of encryption and decryption of communications in front line operations during World War II.

“We acted as coding machines, transmitting messages that would have taken a couple of hours in just a couple of minutes.”

-Chester Nez: World War II Original Navajo Code Talker


Pfc. Preston Toledo and Pfc. Frank Toledo, Navajo~the South Pacific 

~(NARA, 127-GR-137-57875)

Pacific Theater

The Code Talkers were first tested in November 1942 at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands as the United States were trying to oust the Japanese to keep them from being so close to Australia. It was described as a brutal fight that when the U.S. planes couldn’t radio positions to where the Japanese were it was the code talkers that was the only way of communication for the Marines for medicine, ammunition and food and their own positions. The Code Talkers proved they could make a difference and the Japanese fled the island by February.

“A runner approached, handing me a message written in English. [I transmitted the message to another code talker:] ‘Enemy machine gun nest on your right flank. Destroy.’ Suddenly, just after my message was received, the Japanese gun exploded, destroyed by U.S. artillery.” 

-Chester Nez: World War II Original Navajo Code Talker

Navajo Code Talkers ~ Pacific  ~ photo coutsey of National Archives

           Navajo Code Talker, Peter MacDonald Sr. ~ U.S. Department of                                  Veterans Affairs ~ February 20202

Iwo Jima would be one of the costliest fights that would claim 6,800 Americans and 22,000 Japanese. It was here the Navajo Code Talkers proved just how important the code would be remembered.

“Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

~MAJOR HOWARD CONNOR, 5TH MARINE DIVISION SIGNAL OFFICER

When the war came to a halt in August 1945 with the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Sam Sandoval remembers the best message he had to decode.

“The Imperial forces of Japan have surrendered.”

"The Navajo language, discouraged in the past, was instrumental in developing the most significant and successful military code of the time. At Iwo Jima alone, they passed over 800 error-free messages in a 48-hour period;
(A) So successful, that military commanders credited the code in saving the lives of countless American soldiers and the successful engagements of the U.S. in the battles of  Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa;
(B) So successful, that some Code Talkers were guarded by fellow marines whose role was to kill  them in case of imminent capture by the enemy; and
(C) So successful, that the code was kept secret for 23 years after the end of World War II."
​​​​​​​- "Honoring the Navajo Code Talkers Act'': S.2408 — 106th Congress (1999-2000)

Cpl. Henry Bake, Jr., and Pfc. George H. Kirk ~December 1943 ~(NARA, 127-N-69889B)

End of War

The Navajo Code Talkers were treated with respect by other marines but their homecoming was not one of a hero, but completely the opposite. George Willie Sr. recalled arriving at a port where “a lot of people and balloons waiting for the ship,” yet the Navajo were “taken off the other side of the ship on wooden planks and immediately put on buses and sent home on trains. " Even when  they  returned to their communities they faced renewed discrimination with some businesses putting up signs reading “No dogs or Indians.” Heroes is so many ways, but since their code was still a secret, their importance would not be known until 1968 when it was declassified. ​​​​​​​

Continuation of Inequality and Prejudice

                 Sam Billson: World War II Navajo Code Talker               upon his return after the war

“You were just in the Marine Corps like any other Marine, you don’t know anything about any Navajo Code. It’s still top secret and you’ve never been in it, you don’t talk about it, don’t dream about it.”

1st Class Wilsie H. Bitsie- World War II Navajo Code Talker 

“You go someplace and you can’t go in this hotel here, you can’t go in this cafe here, things like that you're up against. That’s how we came back. So that feeds the rest of what we went through. I know because I was told to stay away from places like that. You're still not a citizen but you still pay taxes!” ​​​​​​​

                Jimmie King; World War II Navajo Code Talker;                          1946 letter to Philip Johnston

“The so-called GI Bill of Rights is not doing a damn thing for us. Went to Hell and back for what? For the people back here in America to tell us we can’t vote!! Can’t do this!! Can’t do that!! Because you don’t pay taxes and are not citizens!! We did not say we were not citizens when we volunteered for the Service against the ruthless and treacherous enemies the Japs and Germans. Why? And what are our Buddies lying beneath the Foreign soils for? Is this the same America? The U.S. of America we fought and bled for? If it is let us feel it!! And make us know it!!”