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Navajo Code Talkers |
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Navajo code talker using his ultra-portable TBY radio
this picture was the model for the commemorative medal, below
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Using the Navajo tribe of American Indians to provide cipher service during WW2 was the brainchild of Philip Johnston, the
son of a missionary who grew up on a Navajo Reservation. He was one of only 30 known non-native speakers of this complex
language. The Navajos were a fierce tribe of warrior stock and their language was oral only. Not having a written
language was an advantage for this purpose.
Johnston saw some Indian tribes used to encipher messages in WW1, so he took this proposal to Major General Clayton B. Vogel
early in 1942. He showed that under battlefield conditions, the Navajos could encipher, transmit and decipher a 3 line English
message in 20 seconds compared to the 30 minutes required for the cipher machine in use at the time, the M-209. The first
Navajo code talkers were recruited in May of 1942 and eventually about 400 entered the Marine Corps.
The Navajos played a major role in every major battle of the Pacific from mid-1942 to the end of the war. They supplemented
their native language with a lexicon of 450 military terms not previously known to them, such as tanks, submarines, aircraft carriers,
etc. All these terms and many others had to be memorized without any notes or written codes. One Navajo soldier, who was not
a code talker, was captured by the Japanese and despite being tortured could not understand his own tribe's messages.
The code talkers were accompanied at all times with a Marine who made sure the Navajo he was assigned to was not captured
alive by the Japanese.
Luckily, none were. This was the only code used in WW2 that the Japanese were not able to decipher. After the war, the
Navajo cipher remained a secret in case it needed to be used again, so these heroic veterans were largely unrecognized until
the veil was lifted in 1992. At that time, the remaining veterans were publicly honored in a ceremony at the Pentagon and
a Navajo code talkers exhibit was opened to publicly highlight their achievements.
Since the cipher "machine" used in this case was a Navajo Indian, the only hardware to display are his tools to communicate
this analog code. The radio of choice in the field was the ultra-portable TBY radio as seen in the picture above. It was a
backpack radio of relative light weight and size for the time. They also used the field phones if they were within wired distances.
Pictures from My Cipher Collection
Pictured above is the TBY-2 radio and other equipement used by the Navajo Code Talkers during WW2.
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