Philip Johnston was a missionary’s son who grew up on a Navajo reservation, and fought in World War I. He was aware of the Chocktaw code talkers who served in Europe alongside the allies, and recommended to Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, that Navajos be recruited to serve in the Marine Corps in an identical role. The Navajo language is a complex one, whose “syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training”. It was, at the outbreak of the Pacific War, unwritten, and therefore presumably unbreakable.
Around 400 Navajos served with the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima – and at all the Pacific assaults the Marines conducted between 1942-1945. They served with all six Marine divisions. Their encryptions were fast, accurate and never broken. And valuable: Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”
So highly was the Navajo code valued, that it remained a military secret for years after World War II. It wasn’t until 1992 that their efforts were publicly recognized.
The last of them has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path:
Keith Little did not know the full extent of his contribution as one of the Navajo Code Talkers to the American effort in World War II until much later in life.
Mr Little, one of the most recognizable of the four remaining Code Talkers, was 17 when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming one of hundreds of Navajos trained as Code Talkers.
He spent much of his later life towards the creation of a museum that he never saw realized: Mr Little died of melanoma Tuesday night at a Fort Defiance hospital, said his wife, Nellie. He was 87.
Semper Fi, Marine.
Somebody help me out. Perhaps the best movie about the code-talkers is NOT the latest “Wind-Talkers (2003) or the various documentaries avail on google search, but a 1950s color movie about the Marines (NOT, primarily, about the code-talkers) in the Pacific whose title nor featured actors I can’t recall. In it, the use of code-talkers in battle is well and imaginatively/realistically woven into the script/action. I mention this because this movie belies the “military secret” meme. Perhaps they were only officially recognized by the DOD, etc., in 1992, but their exploits were well depicted by Hollywood in the mid 50s as witnessed by the movie I’ve referenced.
Ephemera: The SU was so worried about the success of the code-talkers that post-WWII they sent many KGB language experts to the US under guise of “academic exchanges” to study the NAVAJO language so as to be able to intercept any Navajo-based communications in any future conflict with the US.
Feel free to correct me VX but I think you may be thinking of “Halls of Montezuma” with Richard Widmark.
VX, and maybe updating BJM:
Battlecryby Leon Uris has code talkers in it. Uris was in the com section during his WWII Marine service.
The 1955 movie of the book starred Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman, according to Wiki. I read the book, but have not seen the movie. Again, Wiki lists code talkers in the movie cast listing.
Missed a slash. I’m abashed.
I agree. I knew about the Code Talkers as a young lad. I think what was kept secret for so long was who were the members of the program
A Navajo guide told me that his language painted pictures in the mind. I didn’t do `spiritual` until I met Navajos. [Note to self: Get arse back to Monument Valley asap. Much needed reconnection]
Agreed Hogday,could live in that country,spent a lot of time in Northern AZ/New Mex. Have a few friends Navajo and
Apache down there..
Damn good firefighters, too..
Thanks, Lex.
TG, what a place. I have a namesake who is a Navajo artist (my real family surname, not my blogging nom de plume). New mex is on my `roads I must ride` list. Just need to ship the old hog over the big pond.
Hogday, if it’s shipping costs that are an obstacle just make a bleg here. You can ride mine.
I’ve a dream too, of riding the route of Patton’s 3rd Army from France to Germany, then up to Danmark and Norway, finally back down to Italy and then a ship home. Who knows, maybe we could arrange a swap.
– Max
Forget swap Max, I’ll ride that with you.
I’d love to do that too.Heard about that too.
My late father-in-law took that particular tour in
1944. Saw it from the inside of a Sherman…
TG: My trip will be a bit like that. I’ll be on a Harley. Only difference is I’ll have an older designed motor and heavier suspension
PS: A VERY COMPLETE history of the code-talkers may be found contained in a senior thesis by Matt Koenig (UNC-Ashville) @
http://www.toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/history_sr/srhistory_2005/koenig_matt.htm
Funny–the link takes one to a COX (I’m currently on Cox cable) CANNOT BE FOUND page, but if one scrolls down the very first alt link listed is the EXACT link. Click on it & it works.
Virgil: There’s an extraneous “www” at the beginning of that Thesis link. Working link:
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/history_sr/srhistory_2005/koenig_matt.htm
These are the real heroes of WWII – the unsung guys who quietly did their essential bit. May they rest in peace, and may their deeds be remembered for all time.
Thank you, Mr. Little.
I met him several years ago at the opening of the Dole Library, being escorted by a young WM. A very cool little dude. I must say that I was glad he felt I was an equal as a Marine. That means something, given what he went through in the Pacific War.
Bridging back to Le’s book bleg- Tony Hillerman has written alot of books set in the Navajo region with lots of descriptions of the people, their beliefs and ways. (Usually with some mystery thriller stuff for good measure). Good reads, or even better as audio books.
Native Americans are worthy of our respect for may of their virtures, and pity for some of their vices, the latter shared by many later immigrants as well.
I think there was a less well-known group of code talkers during the Second World War– the Walloons, a small ethnic group of Belgians IIRC. Their dialects are little known by other Europeans and pilots on “our side” would use their language to communicate while in flight. I have a faint memory that the Basque language was also in use. From a linguistic standpoint, Basque is not related to other romance languages. I’ve even heard speculation that the Basque tongue is closely related to gypsy language and perhaps to Eqyptian. Help me out here, gentlemen and ladies. The old memory slips a cog now and then.
Marianne
Basque isn’t related to any romance language. In fact, as far as we know, Basque isn’t related to any other language. It’s probably the last vestige of the language family spoken in Europe before the Aryans came muscling in. Romani is an Indo-European language, distantly related to Hindi, while Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language, distantly related to Hebrew and Arabic.
Somebody step in if I’m not remembering this correctly, but didn’t most American Indians not have a written language? I know the Dakota Sioux had theirs turned into written form in the mid-1800′s thanks to missionaries, but as one went further west the influence of such busybodies was less often found.
There are several isolated languages around to this day, most of them in isolated areas. There was also the experiment in a universal language, Esperanto. Then there are languages like, say, Low Dane (there apparently used to be Low Dane, High Dane, and around World War 2 everybody decided to speak only Danske), that while written haven’t been used in decades and have very few native-speakers left.
Makes me wonder if, some day, some geek who spent his time coming up with a Klingon language to impress people at a science fiction convention will find himself creating a code language for his country. Encryption can be broken, all it takes is CPU power and a reference. Deciphering a new language, that’s hard!
– Max
Sequoyah did a pretty good job making a written Cherokee language, once he caught the notion of how it was done.
[...] The last of the Navajo code-talkers died [...]
Enought can not be said about Native Americans’ contributions. I am reminded of BG Stand Watie.
Jeff Gauch … You’re obviously a language buff. At this point in my life, I’m not, although I did take five years of Latin, and four of French which has helped with understanding the modern Romance languages. I understand that there is an Indian language called Haida which is also hanging out there with no close relatives.
Oh well … my next lifetime perhaps..
Marianne
Can you imagine–these guys travelled to all those places to fight as a Marine. Yet, when they came home they were required to “return home to the reservation”! That meant that when they landed at Pendleton, or any of the other Pacific coast bases, they got on a bus and were returned to an incarceration on a specific piece of land. At the time that I lived on the Navajo Res in the late 1950′s these men were still not allowed to have a pistol, or to leave the reservation without permission. I was only a teen ager at that time, but even I could see then how wrong that strategy was for all people–white man and Indian. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to fight on Iwo, Tarawa, Guadalcanal in a Marine uniform and then be returned to a place where you were confined and not allowed to have a pistol! They could not shop in town, they could only accept what the “private contractors” sold on the res. I could go on and on. I believe if memory serves me at all that they were only allowed to have the smallest caliber rifle for hunting food. Must have felt quite a bit different in their hands than the rifles they used to defend this country!
I remember reading, somewhen and somewhere, that when WWII happened, some Injuns, maybe Navajos, showed up at the recruiting stations bearing their rifles and otherwise ready to march. Being honest men, they took the mutual-defense part of the treaty they had made with the U.S. quite seriously. An honest man _is_ the noblest work of God, I do believe.
Annie, thats why we’re delighted that The Ghurka’s now have parity over here, but it took a campaign fronted by an actress to hammer it home.
Typo: stet: `GURKHA`. Don’t want a Kukri drawn. Sorry boys.