This is Chester Nez , the last of the originalNavajo 29,being honored at an April 4th ceremony . If it were n’t for him and the other 28 Native Americans who created the hush-hush computer code language used in the Pacific house during World War II , America would have probably never get ahead the warfare against Japan .
Their work was so important that it remain mystical for decades and it ’s only lately — in 1968 — that they have started to receive some of the recognition they merit .
agree to Major Howard Connor—5th Marine Division sign officer during the conflict of Iwo Jima—”were it not for the Navajos , the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima . ”
Connor had six Navajo code talkers work around the clock during the first two days of the conflict . Those six sent and get over 800 substance , all without error .
Before the development of this code , Nipponese intelligence broke every single encryption create by the US military , something that cost M of liveliness and millions of dollar bill in material losses . The Navajo code , however , was never break . Not by the Japanese , not by anyone . Nez — who fought at Guadalcanal , Bougainville , Guam , Peleliu and Angaur — tells the story here :
We first 29 Code Talkers designed a double - code occult spoken language using Navajo and English . It became the only unbroken spoken computer code in modern war . Not even other Navajos could crack our code . in the end the Marines could plan strategical manoeuvre without the opposition know every move .
The code was a complete success and presently was implemented across the entire Pacific theater of operation :
The code was so successful that the Corps recruited 400 more Navajo human beings to connect as Code Talkers . During the war , Nez and the other Code Talkers ’ primary mission was to pick up and send encipher messages . Even if they were being buck at , their focus was on sending the message , not displace back at the enemy .
“ That could be fairly nerve-racking , ” Nez say . “ But we did it . ”
The Nazis tried to thwart the plan
The Navajos were n’t the only Native Americans that were instrumental to win the war . The Comanches worked intemperately in Europe too , even after Adolf Hitler sent a team of anthropologist to seek to learn aboriginal American oral communication in homework of their use in World War II . Hitler knew that , during World War I , the Americans and British force successfully used Cherokee and Choctaw code talkers against the Germans .
Fortunately , Hitler ’s minions never got the complexity of their language and — even while the Allies were nervous about the findings of the Nazi anthropology squad — fourteen Comanche codification talkerssuccessfully worked their codification magic during the Invasion of Normandy and until the destruction of the war .
Comanche of the 4th Signal Company compiled a lexicon of over 100 code terms using word or set phrase in their own language . Using a switch method similar to the Navajo , the Comanche codification word for tank was “ polo-neck ” , hoagie was “ pregnant airplane ” , car gun was “ sewing machine ” and Adolf Hitler became “ crazy white valet de chambre ” .
In North of Africa , 27 Meskwaki did the same oeuvre against Germans and Italians . Amazingly enough , that ’s 16 percent of the population of the total Meskwaki universe in Iowa .
That data point is quite surprising . The entire narrative of the code talker is even more incredible considering that these tribes were systematically exterminated , removed from their land , and humiliated by the United States authorities and its military a simple ten before this all happened . They lived in backlog ( and still do ) and they suffer the same favouritism as African - Americans ( and still do . )
Late recognition
To add insult to hurt , the code talkers receive no public identification until 1968 . In 1982 , President Reagan gave the Navajos a “ Certificate of Recognition . ” It was n’t until Clinton , in 2000 , that a law was passed to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Navajo 29 , while the quietus of the code talkers get the atomic number 47 medal . Four surviving members of the Navajo 29 got the ribbon from President George W. Bush in 2001 . Nez is the last one .
It was n’t until 2008 that all the tribes who participated in encrypt operation during the two big wars were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal . Each tribe got a gold medal — which the white-hot men will keep good at the Smithsonian Institution , because apparently the Native Americans ca n’t keep them safe for some ground I fail to embrace — and each computer code utterer got a facile ribbon duplicate .
HeroesJapannazi
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