Indigenous Americans in World War II: The Navajo Code Talkers

In the summer of 1983, my son and I visited my father, Benson Tohe. He and other Navajo Code Talkers had recently been honored in Washington, DC, with a parade and given a medal for their service in World War II. That was the first time I heard him speak of being a Code Talker. I knew little about his military service, but I knew he was only sixteen years old at the time and not old enough to enlist in the Marine Corps. He persuaded his parents to sign his enlistment form. He was wounded in battle and received a Purple Heart, which he gave to my mother who passed it on to me.

Then, in 2007, I was asked to write an oral history book on the Navajo Code Talkers. For the next two years, I traveled with my collaborator throughout the Southwest to find twenty of the surviving Code Talkers and their descendants to record their stories and to have their portraits taken by a photographer, Deborah O’Grady. Unfortunately, my father had already passed away, and I could not get his story.

Background

In the course of my research I learned about my father’s military service through the Navajo Code Talkers’ stories. They were a select group of young men from the Navajo Nation homeland in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah who enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War II and devised a secret military code in the Navajo language that was never broken by the Japanese military. Many were still in high school or had recently graduated when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. They felt it was their duty to help protect America. Many enlisted, some were told to wait, and others, like my father, were underage but still got in. I was surprised to learn from some of the veterans that the sharp look of the military uniform the recruiters wore to their school was among the reasons for their enlistment.

The Code Talkers received their basic military training in San Diego and devised the code at Camp Elliott, California. Twenty-nine are credited, but as many as thirty-four may have been part of the original group. Military records at that time were kept on paper and were sometimes lost or inaccurate.

Unique Preparations

The Code Talkers had been uniquely prepared to become soldiers because of their background in Navajo culture and the land from which they came. Navajo homes did not have modern conveniences. Everyone in the family had to help with chopping down trees to make firewood, and they had to haul water from its sources. Since they did not own cars, the Navajo people walked, rode horses, or hitchhiked. You can imagine how much exercise they got doing these tasks. When they enlisted, doing the hard work of soldiers was not a big stretch for them. One Code Talker recalled that when he was growing up, his parents made him roll in the snow to toughen him up so that he would be able to withstand hardships in life.

Memorizing over 500 code words was easy for Navajos who came from a rich oral tradition in which stories, songs, and prayers had to be memorized. They were already familiar with marching, because the government schools they attended required it.

Developing the “Secret Weapon”

The Marine Corps was eager to develop a secure code because the Japanese cryptographers had broken all the codes in the South Pacific. Philip Johnston, who grew up on the Navajo homeland and was a World War I veteran, brought to the Marines the idea of using the Navajo language as a code. He knew that Indigenous languages had made successful codes during World War I, and would be effective in World War II. The young men who were selected had to be fluent in both Navajo and English. After testing the reliability of the translations by telephone, the Marines gave the go-ahead to develop the code. It took only a few months to prepare for the war.

The Code Talkers used the English alphabet from A to Z to create simple translations in Navajo for easy memorization. They used many animal names such as horse, sheep, and snake, and the names of household items such as axe, hat, and key. All the code words were written phonetically, just as they sounded. Each letter of the alphabet had three words. For example, A was ant, apple, and axe. These words were translated into Navajo and written as “Wol-la-chee,” “Be-la-sani,” and “Tse-nill,” respectively. Any of the three words could be used to create a message.

The Navajo language did not have words for place names in the South Pacific or for military weaponry. The Code Talkers created words based on the behaviors and descriptions of animals that were familiar to them. For example, the observation plane was called an “owl” because it observed things; bombs were called “eggs” because they could be dropped; and a grenade was called a “potato” because it could be held by hand and thrown. They also devised shortcut words to lessen the amount of time needed to send long messages, which was especially useful if they were in active battle. The entire code was memorized; they could not use written notes. A few stayed behind in California to teach the next group of Code Talkers.

The Code Talkers usually worked in pairs and sent and received messages in Navajo. The messages were translated into English and given to the intended recipients. Sometimes the Code Talkers delivered messages on foot. They also sent messages to ships to position their artillery for targets. When the Japanese heard these messages, they could not comprehend them.

At first, the commanding officers did not make much use of the Code Talkers. They were called “chief” by the officers and by their fellow soldiers, which the Code Talkers felt belittled them. Racial bias hindered the Navajo Marines’ abilities as soldiers and their usefulness as Code Talkers. Nevertheless, attitudes changed during the war, and the code proved a successful weapon.

Bodyguards

Since my father passed on before I could ask him any questions, I do not know if he had a bodyguard. Some Code Talkers reported that they didn’t have one, others said they didn’t know, and one Code Talker showed me a picture of his reunion with his bodyguard. The bodyguard’s purpose was to protect the Code Talker from being taken by the Japanese. If that happened, the bodyguard was to shoot the Code Talker to protect the code. None of the twenty Code Talkers I spoke with said this happened.

Mistreatment

When a more powerful group takes over a less powerful group, it is called colonization. In US colonization, the mistreatment of Indigenous people involved the taking of ancestral lands and resources and the sending of Indigenous children to boarding schools to assimilate them. Millions of Indigenous people died as a result of colonization that included wars, disease, poverty, and social ills. The Code Talkers were a patriotic group of men who believed it was their responsibility to help save America and its future generations, despite the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples. The Code Talkers came from boarding schools during the assimilation era when the US policy intended to erase Native cultures and languages. Students were prohibited from speaking their native language in school, or they would be punished by having their mouths washed out soap, their hands and backs slapped with a ruler, and other forms of humiliation. This treatment led parents to believe that speaking Navajo would be harmful to their children, so many did not teach them their mother tongue. This and other factors led to the decline of Navajo and Indigenous languages in the United States. You can imagine the Code Talkers’ astonishment when they were told they would create a secret code in the Navajo language after being punished for speaking it at their schools.

During the War

After they developed the code, a few Navajo soldiers stayed behind to teach the next group of Code Talkers. Others shipped out to South Pacific islands such as the Philippines, the Marianas, the Marshalls, and Iwo Jima, where they did some of their fiercest fighting. They did not go to Europe. Some Code Talkers witnessed the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Others were sent to Japan and China. They all earned many medals, commendations, and ribbons for the battles in which they fought. Approximately 432 Navajos served as Code Talkers, and approximately thirteen were killed in action. The Navajo Code Talkers returned home after the war ended in 1945. Like many soldiers, the Code Talkers developed “battle shock” or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

WWII Ends

After the Code Talkers were discharged, they were sworn to secrecy to never reveal the code and how they used it in case it was needed again. One Code Talker said he was threatened with prison time if he divulged any details about the code. Several of the Code Talkers’ children never knew that their fathers had served as Code Talkers until 1968, when the code was declassified and made open to the public. The US military branches came to realize the many benefits of using Indigenous languages as code because many of them were not written and were spoken mainly in the home or in the community. The Navajo language was written, but the Code Talkers were not taught how to read and write it. A Navajo language newspaper was in circulation, but very few Navajo speakers knew how to read it. The Choctaw, Hopi, Creek, and Meskwaki are among some of the tribes who used their languages as code in World War I and World War II. Unfortunately, many of these languages are now in decline as they lose speakers from the older generation.

Many of the Code Talkers took advantage of their military benefits. They sent part of their pay home to their families and used their GI Bill benefits to attend school. Navajo healers used Navajo medicine to treat their PTSD, which enabled them to recover. Many continued to give service to their communities or found employment off the homeland.

When the Arizona Navajo Code Talkers were discharged, they were not allowed to vote in Arizona until 1948. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed National Navajo Code Talkers Day on August 14, 1982. In 2001 the original Code Talkers who developed the code received Congressional Gold Medals, while the second group, which included my father, received Congressional Silver Medals. Both groups were honored by the Navajo Nation. It was not until 2014 that the Arizona governor declared August 14 as Navajo Code Talkers Day in Arizona.

As of January 2021, there are approximately four Navajo Code Talkers still living. My father’s service is part of the rich legacy of the Code Talkers who devised a “secret weapon,” a remarkable code that was quick, accurate, and never deciphered or broken, and that saved many American lives.

Laura Tohe, Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation from 2015 to 2019, is Professor Emerita of English at Arizona State University. She is the author of Code Talker Stories , which features interviews with Navajo Code Talkers and portrait photographs of them by Deborah O’Grady (Rio Nuevo Publishers, Arizona, 2012).