How The Navajo Code Talkers And Their Everlasting Legacy

986 Words4 Pages

The Navajo Code Talkers and Their Everlasting Legacy

Throughout recent United States history (post civil-war), discussion of Native American struggles and triumphs has lessened greatly. This is primarily due to the decline in wars and conflict between the government and tribal groups. Although this sort of activity has declined, Native American groups have impacted United States history on many occasions during this time period. One of events that is particularly interesting to research is the Navajo Code Talkers intervention of World War II. Essentially, the Navajo people were utilized by the United States government during the second world war in order to disguise their military codes through another language. The Navajo people have an …show more content…

Initially it was the Marine Corps that had recruited 29 Navajo men to train as Code Talkers. This was at the beginning of the war. By the end, over 400 Navajo were trained and many of them served in the Pacific Theater. The Army had similar training programs for troops in Europe and North Africa (TNA 2016). Although many men from many different tribes were trained as Code Talkers, it was the Navajo that were primarily used during the second World War. Similar to World War I, the Code Talkers were considered another essential part of the victory by the Allied …show more content…

As previously mentioned, the Navajo were the first people to be recruited for WWII as Code Talkers. One reason the Navajo were the first men gathered for the Code Talkers during WWII was because the director of the program for encryption used his position and power to decide that they were perhaps the most valuable group to complete this task. The initiator of the Code Talker program for the Marine Corps, Phillip Johnston, grew up on a Navajo reservation and was familiar with the people and their language. Also according to the National Archives, Johnston was a veteran from the first World War. From this, he knew of the United States’ desire to send and receive messages in an, “unbreakable code” (TNA 2016). Because of his relation and familiarity with the tribes, Johnston deemed the Navajo as the primary recruit for his project during World War

Open Document