Navajo Code Talkers:

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Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Fact Sheet
Research by Alexander Molnar Jr., U.S. Marine Corps/U.S. Army (Ret.)

Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima: the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language -- a code that the Japanese never broke.


The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently. Johnston, reared on the Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the military's search for a code that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages--notably Choctaw--had been used in World War I to encode messages.


Johnston believed Navajo answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. One estimate indicates that less than 30 non-Navajos, none of them Japanese, could understand the language at the outbreak of World War II.


Early in 1942, Johnston met with Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and his staff to convince them of the Navajo language's value as code. Johnston staged tests under simulated combat conditions, demonstrating that Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to perform the same job. Convinced, Vogel recommended to the Commandant of the Marine Corps that the Marines recruit 200 Navajos.


In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training.


Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers' primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed general Marine duties.


Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.


The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines. The Navajo code talkers even stymied a Navajo soldier taken prisoner at Bataan. (About 20 Navajos served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines.) The Navajo soldier, forced to listen to the jumbled words of talker transmissions, said to a code talker after the war, "I never figured out what you guys who got me into all that trouble were saying."


In 1942, there were about 50,000 Navajo tribe members. As of 1945, about 540 Navajos served as Marines. From 375 to 420 of those trained as code talkers; the rest served in other capacities.


Navajo remained potentially valuable as code even after the war. For that reason, the code talkers, whose skill and courage saved both American lives and military engagements, only recently earned recognition from the Government and the public.

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The Navajo Code Talker's Dictionary

When a Navajo code talker received a message, what he heard was a string of seemingly unrelated Navajo words. The code talker first had to translate each Navajo word into its English equivalent. Then he used only the first letter of the English equivalent in spelling an English word. Thus, the Navajo words "wol-la-chee" (ant), "be-la-sana" (apple) and "tse-nill" (axe) all stood for the letter "a." One way to say the word "Navy" in Navajo code would be "tsah (needle) wol-la-chee (ant) ah-keh-di- glini (victor) tsah-ah-dzoh (yucca)."


Most letters had more than one Navajo word representing them. Not all words had to be spelled out letter by letter. The developers of the original code assigned Navajo words to represent about 450 frequently used military terms that did not exist in the Navajo language. Several examples: "besh- lo" (iron fish) meant "submarine," "dah-he- tih-hi" (hummingbird) meant "fighter plane" and "debeh-li-zine" (black street) meant "squad."

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Department of Defense Honors Navajo Veterans

Long unrecognized because of the continued value of their language as a security classified code, the Navajo code talkers of World War II were honored for their contributions to defense on Sept. 17, 1992, at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.


Thirty-five code talkers, all veterans of the U.S. Marine Corps, attended the dedication of the Navajo code talker exhibit. The exhibit includes a display of photographs, equipment and the original code, along with an explanation of how the code worked.


Dedication ceremonies included speeches by the then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood, U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona and Navajo President Peterson Zah. The Navajo veterans and their families traveled to the ceremony from their homes on the Navajo Reservation, which includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.


The Navajo code talker exhibit is a regular stop on the Pentagon tour.

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Harrison Lapahie, a Navajo Code Talker during World War II, the Navajo Code Talkers, the Navajo Platoons of 1981 to 1985, and all Navajo men and women who have stepped forth and gallantly fought in all of the U.S. great wars. These Navajo Warriors have been a vital part of every American war since their last treaty with the United States in 1868. It is the bravery and courage of these Navajos that helped to make the United States the free and proud place it is today.

The Navajo saw service of every kind and won numerous medals and decorations for outstanding conspicious gallantry for their role in all past wars. These brave servicemen and women served their nation with loyalty and with valor; this web site serves to give them honor and acclaim.

When World War I broke out in the Spring of 1914, thousands of Navajo men and women volunteered their services to the war efforts. They fought in the overseas places of France, Germany, and Italy and received numerous awards and decorations for outstanding duty; many were cited for bravery under fire. A large number of Navajo women on the Navajo Reservation were active in Red Cross and several Navajos bought Liberty Bonds and were involved in other war efforts.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, the Navajos again left the canyons, plains and mesas of their reservation homes to join the armed forces and played a crucial role in such combat arenas as Guadacanal, Saipan, Bougainville, Tinian, Anzio, Salerno, Normandy, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and countless other bloody islands and forgotten battlefields. It is estimated that more than 3,600 young Navajo men and women joined the armed forces and over 10,000 Navajos went to work in the military factories during World War II. Proportionately, that figure represents one of the highest percentages of total population in the armed service of any ethnic group in the United States! Navajos were an integral part of the war effort even though they were not given the right to vote in Arizona until 1948, in New Mexico until 1953, and in Utah until 1957!

A special group of Navajos were formed during World War II called the Navajo Code Talkers. The Code Talkers used a special code based on the unwritten Navajo language to transmit messages, making it futil for the Japanese enemy to decipher American battle messages about the time and place of attack. The complex syntax and complicated tonal qualities of the Navajo language could baffle even the most experienced linguists.

Many American who staked their lives on the success of the Navajo view the Code Talkers contributions to the war effort as nothing short of monumental. One Marine Corps signal officer summed up the situation after the war: "Were it not for the Navajo Code Talkers, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima and other places". Nearly every Navajo has some connection to a Navajo Code Talker, whether it be a family member, distant relative or a friend who is related to one.

The Navajos were again ready to go to battle when the Korean War began. War came to Korea at dawn on June 25, 1950, when the Korean People's Army launched its offensive against the People's Republic of Korea. The Navajos were again part of the courageous Americans who willingly gave their services to the war efforts. They fought grueling battles at such faraway places as Taejon, Chonan, Chonai, the Kum River and Chochiwon. They protected the port city of Pusan, the bridges at Sinanju, took cover in rice paddys in a field near Asan and defended communists threats in the Uijongbu Corridor just north of Seoul where they faced manacing tanks which headed the onslaught.

The Navajos saw the end of the Korean War only to be called upon soon after to go to the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, who's silent roots date back to the 1930's turned into an open war in early 1965. This was the longest battle in American history and was second only to the World War II in terms of lives lost and dollars spent.

There were approximately 3,000 Navajos who volunteered their services for this bloody battle. They fought in battles on the shores of Danand and Hue, and flew through heavy fire in the Apbia Mountains. They defended the la Drang Valley, An Khe, Ban Me Thou-i, Qui Nhon and Nha Trang. Hundreds were killed and many wounded, but for those who made it home, it was an experience they will never forget. Upon their return home, they did not see any outstanding ceremony of award waiting for them. Some had the Navajo medicine man perform a ritual which served to make them forget their bad experiences.

After 56 years since the end of World War 2, on July 2001, the first group of Navajo Code Talkers (the original 29), who developed and initiated the secret Navajo code, were given the Gold Congressional Medal of Honor in Washington, DC. Only 5 were alive and only 4 were able to attend. In November 2001, the other approximately 400 Navajo Code Talkers were given the Silver Congressional Medal of Honor in Window Rock, AZ. Few Navajo Code Talkers were alive to attend. Instead many family members of deceased Navajo Code Talkers accepted their medals.

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One of the last few visited our Veteran's day get together last year very motivating.