NAVAJO CODE TALKERS

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were some pretty amazing groups that emerged during the wars. Another one of these groups was the Navajo Code Talkers during WWII. The Japanese were amazing at cracking our codes until Philip Johnston came up with a solution. Johnston had been born to missionaries on a Navajo Indian Reservation, and he knew that if a code were developed based on the Navajo language it would be very difficult to break. Twenty-nine Navajos were chosen to develop the code, but by the end of the war over 400 served with every marine unit as code talkers. These men were not allowed to share with anyone, including their families, what they were doing until twenty-nine years later when it was determined their code was no longer needed. Most of them had grown up being told that they needed to learn English and forget their language, yet it was their language that helped us win the war. Today there is a memorial at Window Rock, Arizona dedicated to these brave men.

Left to right - Navajo Code Talkers by Brynn Baker (similar to a DK book), picture book Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code by Joseph Bruchac (there is a little bit about the Navajo's spirituality in this book), and Graphic Library comic book Navajo Code Talkers: Top Secret Messengers of World War II by Blake Hoena.