Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry.
Speaker 1: So this is stuff you should know. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be a good one. This is a grabstor joint. Did
Speaker 1: you want to talk about super first? Are you kidding? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was kidding. Oh, I thought you were serious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was bad soup, but I meant that bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, right before we started recording, like this is
Speaker 1: how how awesome things are around here, we were talking
Speaker 1: about how bad your French onion soup was. How do
Speaker 1: you mess up French onions? Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 1: And he said, say that, I want to talk about this,
Speaker 1: and I thought you were serious. Yeah, I was kidding. Well,
Speaker 1: and here we are. I was kidding. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: we were talking about the soup anyway, How do you
Speaker 1: mess up French onion soup? It's like beef broth, salt, onions,
Speaker 1: cheese bread. Yeah, they put too much in it, melted
Speaker 1: in the crock pot. Yes, yes, this. The onions they
Speaker 1: used were way too sweet. I think they used like
Speaker 1: onions dipped in sugar. It was just not good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not good. You can tell we shouldn't call them out publicly.
Speaker 1: That'd be pretty mean. Sure, I mean, they just don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing with soup. It's fine, but they're
Speaker 1: a soup restaurant. There are a lot of sup restaurants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you remember that, dumb one? I think they're out
Speaker 1: of business. Now, let us surprise you. Haven't dumb about
Speaker 1: let us surprise you, buddy, soup and sell love that
Speaker 1: that's out of business, right, Yeah, there's something called sweet
Speaker 1: Tomatoes that's basically the I think I've heard of that. Yep. Hey,
Speaker 1: I like a good soup and salad joint. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: what was wrong with let us surprise you? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I don't like cute see names unless it's
Speaker 1: on The Simpsons. And I think the teas were made
Speaker 1: of carrots. Yeah for sure. Well that leads us right
Speaker 1: into Navajo code talkers. Exactly. Quite well, we should say
Speaker 1: right out of the gate that, um, we're well, like
Speaker 1: you just said, we're talking about Navajo code talkers. There
Speaker 1: were plenty of other code talkers from other Native American tribes.
Speaker 1: This episode is mostly about the Navajo code talkers because
Speaker 1: there were so many of them and so much is
Speaker 1: known about the codes that they made. But we'll also
Speaker 1: mention other tribes as well, Yes, and straight up respect
Speaker 1: to all of them. It always kind of stinks when
Speaker 1: one thing gets all the glory when there were many
Speaker 1: factions of that thing. So yeah, right, But I think
Speaker 1: that's better than just naming this episode like how code
Speaker 1: talkers work, but only talking about the Navajo code talkers.
Speaker 1: I think we covered everything right, agreed. So Um, if
Speaker 1: you have ever seen or familiar with a movie called
Speaker 1: wind Talkers, as have you seen it? I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: but I did look it up today, and it is
Speaker 1: widely regarded as not only garbage, a garbage movie, but
Speaker 1: a real disservice to do a great to do a
Speaker 1: movie about the Navajo code talkers, but it's really a
Speaker 1: movie about Nick Cage, right, directed by John Woo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a violent war movie that happened to be structured
Speaker 1: around a really interesting historical plot, right, Like, let's let's
Speaker 1: take this really amazing story from history and and let's
Speaker 1: morph it into a story about a white soldier. It's like, um,
Speaker 1: dancing to Havana. Nights. Basically, Oh, it's funny, it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the wind Talkers. I do I do not indorse that film.
Speaker 1: I do not either, and neither of us have seen it.
Speaker 1: We still don't endorse that. No, I don't. I just
Speaker 1: need to see the reviews on that one. But the
Speaker 1: the point of it was that there was a Native
Speaker 1: American I don't know if he's a Nava or not
Speaker 1: um in that movie because again haven't seen it, but
Speaker 1: UM who was who was charged with speaking his native
Speaker 1: tongue to someone else on the other end of the
Speaker 1: line at the front lines of battle in the Pacific
Speaker 1: Theater during World War two, Um to transmit messages in code,
Speaker 1: in an unbreakable code, and that actually happened, Like that
Speaker 1: part of the story happened, and it was true that
Speaker 1: there were in World War Two Native Americans in large
Speaker 1: part Navajo who were speaking to one another in Navajo,
Speaker 1: like on Guadalcanal, or um in the Marianas or the
Speaker 1: Marshall Islands or Okinawa, who were there at all of
Speaker 1: these major massive battles in the Pacific Theater between the
Speaker 1: United States and Japan. UM that actually eventually led to
Speaker 1: this island hopping process led to them the atomic bombs
Speaker 1: being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the Mariannas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: code so uh well complex to our dumb ears. To
Speaker 1: the Navajoo, they were just like, this is just our language. True,
Speaker 1: but even if you're a linguist, you're like, this is
Speaker 1: extraordinarily difficult language. Yeah, but so complex that UM it
Speaker 1: confounded the Japanese, who were really good at busting codes,
Speaker 1: and they were like, I don't know what's going on here.
Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, this is I've never heard anything like this,
Speaker 1: which was a huge reversal because prior to the institution
Speaker 1: of um Navajo code talkers and I think nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: like late nineteen forty two, UM, the Japanese had our
Speaker 1: goat with our coded transmissions. Because for the for the
Speaker 1: number one, there were a number of Japanese people who
Speaker 1: had been educated in the US in between World War
Speaker 1: One world War two UM and had gone back to
Speaker 1: Japan prior to World War two, and they were totally
Speaker 1: fluent in English, so they could speak English like up down,
Speaker 1: in sideways. Plus on top of that, they were really
Speaker 1: good at breaking our coats, so they knew basically everything
Speaker 1: we were going to do every step of the way.
Speaker 1: So the Navajo code talkers coming into the Pacific theater,
Speaker 1: was it reversed our fortunes? There's there's it's not an
Speaker 1: overstatement to say that they basically helped the US take
Speaker 1: the Pacific from Japan, not single handedly, but through their coat.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. All right, So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: Navajo UH in general. To begin with Native American tribe
Speaker 1: UM that inhabited the American southeast or what you know
Speaker 1: now we know it as an American Southwest. Back then
Speaker 1: it was known as the South. Yeah, exactly. And you're like,
Speaker 1: what this isn't the coast American Southwest? I wish everyone
Speaker 1: could see because Josh literally just pointed in the other direction.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you pointed, wet Uh you pointed that way?
Speaker 1: Is that west? I don't even know. Hold on, now,
Speaker 1: that's that's north. Okay, the American South, the American South North? Uh.
Speaker 1: They the original um people's were they believed from Asia?
Speaker 1: Maybe ironically in the end, when you see how the
Speaker 1: story goes, UH and settled in the southwest round fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred ce UM in the sixteen hundreds, UH, A lot
Speaker 1: of things changed the next few hundred years were uh,
Speaker 1: they were warring with the Spanish, they were warring with
Speaker 1: other Native American tribes. And then that was all kind
Speaker 1: of leading up to the eighteen hundreds when the United
Speaker 1: States popped up and said, hey, um, here's what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do. We're going to wreck your economy. We're going
Speaker 1: to destroy your crops and livestock and poison your wells
Speaker 1: and kill all your buffalo and put you on reservations
Speaker 1: and march you, um, march you to New Mexico, where
Speaker 1: your new home will be and what will be known
Speaker 1: as the Long Walk. Yeah. It was basically their their
Speaker 1: trail of tears. Yeah, exactly. It was just right out
Speaker 1: of the Westward Expansion playbook. Um. And so the Navajo
Speaker 1: found themselves. When was that the mid it was? I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: And like why that, I mean, it's important for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons. But um, the men who ended up
Speaker 1: being the Navajo code talkers in World War Two, their
Speaker 1: grandparents were these people that were forced to go on
Speaker 1: the Long Walk. Yes, and it wasn't you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of years later, like direct descendants that ended
Speaker 1: up fighting for the United States. Yes, and this is
Speaker 1: not like, hey, do you mind moving over here? It was.
Speaker 1: It was very much like the Trail of Tears. It
Speaker 1: was movement three hundred miles to a reservation against their will. Um,
Speaker 1: at the barrel of a gun. Yeah, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to go okay, I'll shoot you, yes, exactly. There
Speaker 1: were reports of UM, of the injured, of the tired,
Speaker 1: people who fell behind were just shot by the U. S. Infantry. Um.
Speaker 1: There was at least one family that reported that their
Speaker 1: pregnant daughter was UM. They were forced away from her.
Speaker 1: She was kept behind and they heard her being shot
Speaker 1: as well. It was. It was. It was just a
Speaker 1: violation and atrocity done to the Navajo like get was
Speaker 1: done to so many other Native American groups. And by
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, like basically eighteen fifty seven on the
Speaker 1: Navajo lived exclusively on reservations in the in the Southwest. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And starting in about the eighteen seventies, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government said, here's what we're gonna do. Um, you have
Speaker 1: to assimilate into American society. We want you to forget
Speaker 1: your culture as you knew it. You can't speak your
Speaker 1: native language anymore. Um, We're gonna round up your kids
Speaker 1: and send them to American boarding schools, teach them to
Speaker 1: read and write in English only. Uh. And you're going
Speaker 1: to be punished and for bidden from speaking your native tongue,
Speaker 1: from singing in your native tongue. Yes, you will be
Speaker 1: beaten if we catch you speaking Navajo to one another.
Speaker 1: And they, like I think you just said, they would
Speaker 1: kidnap children, take them to these schools, just like they
Speaker 1: did with the Aboriginal tribes in Australia, UM, just like
Speaker 1: they did with the first Americans in UM, the first
Speaker 1: nations in Canada. And it was just not only have
Speaker 1: we taken your land, not only have we forced you
Speaker 1: to live in this one area that no one else
Speaker 1: wants to live in, like we want to destroy your
Speaker 1: culture now, like we're going after your culture. We just
Speaker 1: don't want to obliterate you guys completely. We'll let you
Speaker 1: live but under these these conditions, and we're not We're
Speaker 1: gonna murder your culture. And so not only were these
Speaker 1: code talkers the grandchildren or the grandsons of the people
Speaker 1: who went on the Long Walk, they were the very
Speaker 1: people who went to these Indian schools and were beaten
Speaker 1: for speaking Navajoa. And then about nineteen forty two, the
Speaker 1: United States military, specifically the Marine showed up and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: we'd love for you to come speak Navajo officially for
Speaker 1: the United States government. Would you mind doing that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this was after World War One. It went on
Speaker 1: in World War One. Actually, Um, World War two got
Speaker 1: all the press, and the Navajo of course did more
Speaker 1: than anyone else, Like you said, but in World War
Speaker 1: One there were um. In nineteen eighteen, there was a
Speaker 1: captain from the Ontywcond Infantry Regiment who heard UM two
Speaker 1: Choctaw soldiers speaking in their native tongue and was like, Man,
Speaker 1: we're getting hammered with the Germans and the French cracking
Speaker 1: our codes. So I think that this language could be
Speaker 1: of use to us because it's really complex. Germans have
Speaker 1: no idea what what's going on with your language, and
Speaker 1: I think we could put you to use. And so
Speaker 1: the very first code talkers, I think, were these Choc
Speaker 1: talk code talkers in World War One. Yeah. The well,
Speaker 1: we were fighting with the French when we were talking
Speaker 1: to the French, but the Germans spoke French and English
Speaker 1: and we're using regular telephone lines in World War One,
Speaker 1: I guess they just had them tapped. So they were
Speaker 1: just eavesdropping and we might as well have been speaking
Speaker 1: German for as well as they were translating these coded transmissions.
Speaker 1: Now all of a sudden they're like, what is what
Speaker 1: is this? We've never heard this language before ever. It's
Speaker 1: just a couple of Choctaw guys talking to one another.
Speaker 1: But it was for Germany an unbreakable code at least
Speaker 1: as long as World War One was going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't think this early World War One code
Speaker 1: was so much a code as like you're saying, like,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna put a Choctaw on one end and
Speaker 1: a Choctaw on the other end of the line, and
Speaker 1: they'll just relay the messages that we tell them to
Speaker 1: and their native tongue. And the Germans were like nine right.
Speaker 1: The only word I could think of, uh holgan its
Speaker 1: World War two rooms that would come years later. So, um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Choctaw members of the Choctaw tribe who
Speaker 1: were code talkers in World War One. Also the Comanche
Speaker 1: played a role. Um the Fox which is also known
Speaker 1: as the um oh Man I had it. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard the Fox tribe from I believe Mississippi I
Speaker 1: don't think so you oh, you don't. Um. There was
Speaker 1: also the Comanche. They played a big role in some
Speaker 1: other tribes did as well. But there's like we're talking
Speaker 1: a handful of people in the capacity, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, just say this in your native language
Speaker 1: to this other guy who speaks your native language and
Speaker 1: he'll tell you know, the guy on the other end
Speaker 1: what you just said in English. Yeah. And here's the
Speaker 1: rub I mean there. It is rich with irony throughout
Speaker 1: this whole story. But here's the rub in World War
Speaker 1: One is that Native Americans weren't even granted citizenship until
Speaker 1: so the World War One code talkers were not even
Speaker 1: American citizens yet they were doing this. Uh, and they
Speaker 1: were not even recognized by the United States and acknowledged
Speaker 1: and thanked until two thousand eight, right thousand eight, ten
Speaker 1: years ago. France even recognized them in I think, did
Speaker 1: you say that? Okay, So France recognized them first, and
Speaker 1: it took another twenty years before the US recognized him officially. Unbelievable,
Speaker 1: It is unbelievable. Um. But the the the problem with
Speaker 1: World War One is it worked, but we became friendly
Speaker 1: with Germany in between world War One and World War Two,
Speaker 1: and Germany said, yeah, we're going to headge our bets here.
Speaker 1: We're going to send some people to the United States
Speaker 1: to learn Native American languages and culture so that if
Speaker 1: we ever go to war with the United States again,
Speaker 1: we'll have their number. And they did. Apparently there were
Speaker 1: plenty of well, I don't know if plenty of the
Speaker 1: right word, but there were Germans who spoke um, Cherokee, Comanche,
Speaker 1: so that um, so much so that the some of
Speaker 1: the American commanders in World War two were like, we
Speaker 1: can't use Native American language because there's Germans who know
Speaker 1: this already. They were compromised basically between World War One
Speaker 1: and World War Two. You wanna take a break, Oh yes,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a break, and we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back and talk about the dawn of World War two.
Speaker 1: And a man named Philip Johnston. All right, so right
Speaker 1: before World War two, UM, there was a training exercise
Speaker 1: going on with UH, with soldiers from Michigan and Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: There were Native American soldier is involved, and there was
Speaker 1: a man UH and they were, you know, they were
Speaker 1: testing out these coded transmissions. Are like, we didn't world
Speaker 1: War one. Let's try it again. There was a man
Speaker 1: there named Philip Johnston who was a white man, but
Speaker 1: he actually grew up on a Navajo reservation. I think
Speaker 1: he just read an article about this. Actually, Um, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: he wasn't in the army at this time because they
Speaker 1: brought him in like he was way too old, way
Speaker 1: too old. But around this time I think he was
Speaker 1: about fifty years old. Yeah, but he had the benefit
Speaker 1: of growing up on a Navajo reservation. Considered himself a Navajo,
Speaker 1: spoke the language following World War One and said, I
Speaker 1: want to make a comeback, and I want to go
Speaker 1: back and fight in World War two and start up
Speaker 1: this crack team of Navajo code talkers. It was his idea.
Speaker 1: And they said he went into the office of whatever
Speaker 1: higher up general he needed to spoke some Navajo and
Speaker 1: said this worked once, why can't it work twice? And
Speaker 1: they was like, by George, I think you go onto something. Well,
Speaker 1: they said, we'll give you, uh well of you a
Speaker 1: chance to demonstrate this. So apparently in Los Angeles he
Speaker 1: recruited four Navajo men who I guess he was friendly
Speaker 1: with because, like you said, he considered himself Navaho. His
Speaker 1: parents were missionaries. Um. And apparently he spoke Navajo so
Speaker 1: well that at age nine, he served as the official
Speaker 1: translator for a Navajo delegation that had gone to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. To lobby for better treatment and rights for
Speaker 1: the Navajo nation. Which is amazing because, as you'll learn,
Speaker 1: the not a lot of because there were other white
Speaker 1: people who spoke Navajo that tried to be code talkers
Speaker 1: and none of them made the cut. No, such a
Speaker 1: hard language, right, So this guy must have just had
Speaker 1: an ear for it too and was raised with it.
Speaker 1: But um, he uh, he said, we I know you
Speaker 1: guys are trying to make a code. I've got this language.
Speaker 1: I've got these four guys from Los Angeles with me.
Speaker 1: Just give him a shot. And so they gave him
Speaker 1: a shot, I think Camp Elliott, and um, they gave two.
Speaker 1: They took the two of the four Navajo guys, broke
Speaker 1: them into pairs, put them in separate rooms, and said, here,
Speaker 1: say this in Navajo, say this English phrase the Eagle
Speaker 1: Lands at midnight. Will say, all right, that old bit,
Speaker 1: and tell your buddies and see what they say. So
Speaker 1: they transmitted the Eagle Lands at Midnight or whatever it was. Um,
Speaker 1: over the phone in Navajo. The guys in the other
Speaker 1: room took it in Navajo, translated it back into English
Speaker 1: in like a minute. And the guys at Camp Elliot
Speaker 1: were pretty impressed by this. They said, we're going to
Speaker 1: bring in some German and Japanese people to listen. And
Speaker 1: they're like, did you guys get that? I have no
Speaker 1: idea what they said nine and whatever the Japanese word
Speaker 1: is for now? Do you know that? Uh yet yet?
Speaker 1: It's like that sounds a lot like Russians. The Japanese
Speaker 1: word from now they say no so infrequent. I was
Speaker 1: about to say, you know why you don't know that
Speaker 1: because all you say is yes right when you go
Speaker 1: over there, Yeah, sure, I'll take more more please, They
Speaker 1: just bang my bowl on the table. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: they they they actually didn't do that. I'm kidding, of course,
Speaker 1: but they said this is great, and this is the
Speaker 1: trick was not only was it um like basically impossible
Speaker 1: to crack, but like you're saying, it was super fast,
Speaker 1: way faster than machine codes, right, So that's a huge
Speaker 1: advantage that this this offered, was you're using um Navajo
Speaker 1: speakers to send a coded message. Prior to this In
Speaker 1: an addition to this, you would you would use basically
Speaker 1: machines that used algorithms to encode and decode a message,
Speaker 1: and it could take hours hours. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: send a desperate message on a frontline battle in the
Speaker 1: Pacific theater, you don't have hours for that thing to
Speaker 1: get across. So the idea that you could do the
Speaker 1: same thing in minutes in a code that you were
Speaker 1: just positive the Japanese would have no idea what to
Speaker 1: do with that was a huge advantage for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like the grabs are pointed out, it was taking
Speaker 1: a long time with the code machines that the Germans
Speaker 1: in Japanese were cracking anyway. So this was the solution.
Speaker 1: There was like no no downside to it, alright. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, Johnston was Philip Johnson was far too
Speaker 1: old because he was a World War One veteran. Uh,
Speaker 1: they gave him a special commission, said you're now a
Speaker 1: staff sergeant and the Marines again or I don't know
Speaker 1: if use of the marine or in the army initially,
Speaker 1: do you know, I don't know, But at any rate,
Speaker 1: he was in the Marines this time, and they said
Speaker 1: you're gonna lead the Code Talker project go out and recruit,
Speaker 1: So he went to reservations, recruited young men, and between
Speaker 1: three and four hundred of these young men became UH
Speaker 1: code talkers. He recruited more than that, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them failed out for very various reasons, like you know,
Speaker 1: they still have to go through boot camp and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, so he still have to be a sold
Speaker 1: or on top of it. Although it was a kind
Speaker 1: of a truncated version of boot camp because they had
Speaker 1: to get them in there quick. They needed them so badly.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're fine. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: need to take you to code school basically. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the whole thing started with UM thirty. They originally recruited
Speaker 1: thirty Navajo speakers. One of them dropped out, so there
Speaker 1: were twenty nine original Navajo code talkers and they were
Speaker 1: put to work initially creating the code. Because very importantly,
Speaker 1: the Navajo code talkers not only spoke to one another
Speaker 1: in Navajo, which was incomprehensible to basically anybody living it
Speaker 1: listening to it who didn't speak it, UM, they would
Speaker 1: also use a code. They would use code words in Navajo.
Speaker 1: So what they created was a code within a code,
Speaker 1: and it was as unbreakable as as any any codes
Speaker 1: ever been come up that anyone's ever come up with.
Speaker 1: I think we should you and I can't speak navajo. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm I'm rusty. I think we should play
Speaker 1: just a little bit of navajo, all right, and then
Speaker 1: I'll translate lying Kai a kid joggi hanadia lago k
Speaker 1: nazad leko a certain jolago nadia and yeah, opens is
Speaker 1: so what you just heard in navajo was um. This
Speaker 1: is from the parable of the prodigal son from the
Speaker 1: movie Wind Talkers. What you just heard was not long
Speaker 1: after that, the younger son got together all he had
Speaker 1: set off for a distant country and they're squandered his
Speaker 1: wealth in wild living, something everybody does from time to time.
Speaker 1: But that was that was what you just heard in navajo. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's so foreign sounding um for a reason,
Speaker 1: like it's a really difficult language in that like the
Speaker 1: same vowel can have four different types of intonation and
Speaker 1: four different meanings. So one word can have four different
Speaker 1: meanings based on the whether you know, you go up
Speaker 1: or you speak through your nose or whatever. But you're
Speaker 1: saying the same word, you're just intoning it differently, and
Speaker 1: that just changes the meaning dramatically. That was one reason
Speaker 1: why it was so impenetrable. Yeah, And like you said,
Speaker 1: they they memorized five code words, three different versions of
Speaker 1: the alphabet, and went to war. I mean I used
Speaker 1: the word irony. I don't mean that's that's sort of
Speaker 1: undersells it what was going on and why these men would,
Speaker 1: um would sign up for something like this, and and
Speaker 1: Ed points out like you can't get into the head
Speaker 1: of them or explain every person's motivation because it was
Speaker 1: all different. But um, through interviews, you know what what
Speaker 1: sort of stood out was that they still even though
Speaker 1: that the United States had stomped them down into near oblivion,
Speaker 1: they still had a tie to that land and that
Speaker 1: was their land. And regardless of what had gone on
Speaker 1: in the past, Um, the Germans and the Japanese were
Speaker 1: uh were invaders, that they were a threat to their
Speaker 1: holy land. They were still a common enemy between the
Speaker 1: United States and the Navajo. Yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: just so much about their people that they could just
Speaker 1: put all the other stuff aside, and the genocide and
Speaker 1: the long walk and the trail of tears and say, well,
Speaker 1: this this is still my land even though I'm on
Speaker 1: a reservation, and I don't I want to help protect it. Amazing. Yes,
Speaker 1: some of them were joined up because there, um, they
Speaker 1: subscribed to the Navajo warrior culture, and the Navajo definitely
Speaker 1: had their own warrior warrior culture, although that wasn't like
Speaker 1: necessarily the central focus of their ulture. Others were like,
Speaker 1: oh man, you're gonna get me off of this reservation
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go travel the world. I've never been
Speaker 1: on a bus before. Let's go. Um. Someone were like,
Speaker 1: I like this, g I Bill you're talking about. Um.
Speaker 1: Others were drafted, didn't want to go, but they were
Speaker 1: still drafted and they went. So they were just like
Speaker 1: to to paint it any other way is to make it,
Speaker 1: like to give it the wind talker treatment. That's not
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know. Way, there were as many
Speaker 1: different people. I think there were four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one Navajo code talkers who ended up serving in World
Speaker 1: War Two. I'm sure there were four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one different reasons for why they went. That's just the
Speaker 1: way it is there. They're people, Yeah, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about people here dollar short day late. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about this code within a code. Um
Speaker 1: here here's one example. So troops moving forward to the
Speaker 1: late is what the grab stirt came up with. And
Speaker 1: they wouldn't just get on the horn with their Navajo
Speaker 1: uh counterpart on the other end and say troops moving
Speaker 1: forward to the lake in Navajo. They would substitute in
Speaker 1: different words. Sometimes they would spell out some words one
Speaker 1: letter at a time, with that letter being represented by
Speaker 1: a word, like the first letter in the word that
Speaker 1: they say. And it was the I mean, there were
Speaker 1: there were rules for the code, but the person on
Speaker 1: the other end, they were so in sync with one
Speaker 1: another that they didn't necessarily look at a chart and say, well,
Speaker 1: this is means this and this means this. They were
Speaker 1: just able to converse rather organically within this code within
Speaker 1: the code, right, and they all knew that that code
Speaker 1: that was like this means this and this means this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, from from from the research, it seems like
Speaker 1: they were able to shift and like you said, make
Speaker 1: it organic on the fly, and they knew what one
Speaker 1: another was saying kind of throughout the playbook a little bit,
Speaker 1: I imagine in certain circumstances. Uh, and I'm sure the
Speaker 1: American um, you know, the generals and the people in
Speaker 1: charge were just like, just do it, man, just do
Speaker 1: your thing, or they were like, I have no idea
Speaker 1: what you just said. They had no idea. They threw
Speaker 1: out the playbook a lot of times. They had to
Speaker 1: do that because there weren't equivalents of certain words, like
Speaker 1: they didn't have words for bombardment and and shell casing
Speaker 1: and things like that, because they didn't have those things
Speaker 1: in their culture, so they had to make up things
Speaker 1: that they would be able to understand. Both ways, well,
Speaker 1: they were also so there was an an alphabet, right,
Speaker 1: so every three alphabets three Yes, that's right. So there
Speaker 1: were three different words for every letter of the alphabet.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, okay, UM, But there's something that is really
Speaker 1: easy to look past that we really have to to think.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons why this is so unbreakable.
Speaker 1: If if you UM wanted to use the letter I,
Speaker 1: well you would say the Navajo word for ice, okay,
Speaker 1: But the Navajo word for ice doesn't have that It
Speaker 1: doesn't begin with the letter I. They probably didn't have
Speaker 1: a word for ice though, But that's funny people, well
Speaker 1: know they The weird thing is is that they did
Speaker 1: they did. Yes, they have ice. It was their most
Speaker 1: closely related to a Native Alaskan tongue. Why they think
Speaker 1: it's like evidence, it's linguistic evidence. They came across the
Speaker 1: bearing land bridge. Um. So yeah, they also have a
Speaker 1: word for shark, which is like, that doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense either if they they're they're from Arizona, basically in
Speaker 1: New Mexico. That's what I thought. Yeah, they're like Chevy Chase, um.
Speaker 1: But they but they have like a lot of They
Speaker 1: have one for salmon, copperhead salmon, and that's you know
Speaker 1: a lot of those in New Mexico. Yeah, it is delicious.
Speaker 1: But the point is is the Navajo word um for
Speaker 1: ice doesn't necessarily begin with ice. So even if you
Speaker 1: knew Navajo, you wouldn't necessary really know that this is
Speaker 1: the word for the letter I. And then to confound
Speaker 1: it even more if there's three different words for the
Speaker 1: letter I. Even if you're spelling like, um, well, what's
Speaker 1: the word with multiple eyes? Hurry up and give me
Speaker 1: one quick? Uh elicit Yes, okay, if you're spelling illicit
Speaker 1: out you could use two different words for I, and
Speaker 1: that cuts down on letter or in this case, code
Speaker 1: word repetition, which is one of the easiest ways to
Speaker 1: break a code. Look for repetitions and pair those up
Speaker 1: with the letters that are used most frequently in English.
Speaker 1: So if you're using three different code words for a
Speaker 1: single letter, you can mix it up while you're spelling
Speaker 1: it out, makes it even more impenetrable, Like this is
Speaker 1: just such a gorgeous code. Yeah, they used um imagery
Speaker 1: a lot of times, which is makes it kind of
Speaker 1: strangely lyrical, like a um, a die bomber was a
Speaker 1: chicken hawk, a submarine was an iron fish. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then they also use you know, you heard a Cockney
Speaker 1: rhyming slang um, which is she's. We could do a
Speaker 1: podcast on that, but that'd be kind of cool. Um.
Speaker 1: I won't even get into that. But it makes basically
Speaker 1: make compound words in an English sound like a word
Speaker 1: uh in the message. So um. The examples that the
Speaker 1: grabster got was like the words secured. They would say.
Speaker 1: The Navajo words for sheep cured or dispatch became dog
Speaker 1: is patch in Navajo though, But so even if you
Speaker 1: knew Navajo and you heard dog is patch. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know that that meant dispatch, right, And if you didn't
Speaker 1: know Navajo, you wouldn't be able to hear and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that rhymes with dispatched. I'll bet that's what they said.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like anything you've ever heard before in
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah. And like you said, they would. They
Speaker 1: were so familiar with it and comfortable with it that
Speaker 1: they would switch it up on the fly. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and you know, again, technically they had um they would
Speaker 1: do something to alert the person that was like a
Speaker 1: system in place to say like now we're going to
Speaker 1: use this version, but they were they didn't even need
Speaker 1: to do that really, right, That just seemed like a formality.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, Yeah. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why they were so able to shift like that, um,
Speaker 1: because these these guys who were raised in the Indian schools,
Speaker 1: they had to speak to one another Navajo like surreptitiously.
Speaker 1: So they had to be able to shift on the fly,
Speaker 1: not just between like um nuance and Navajo, which is
Speaker 1: a very nuanced language to begin with, but also between
Speaker 1: Navajo and English depending on who is coming their way. Um.
Speaker 1: So there was a a I think it's my impression
Speaker 1: that from their the treatment in Indian school, UM, it
Speaker 1: would have made it easier for them to understand what
Speaker 1: somebody was saying when they broke the rules of the
Speaker 1: language really quickly. Yeah, they'd be able to follow. And then, Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's one other thing that made this code even more beautiful.
Speaker 1: It wasn't written down in There was no book, no document,
Speaker 1: no text that you could get and teach yourself Navajo.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get it. And like you said, even some
Speaker 1: like white kids that were raised out on trading posts
Speaker 1: and spoke Navaho their whole life, they washed out of
Speaker 1: the code talker program. They had basically a success rate
Speaker 1: non Navajo, UM had a success rate basically zero in
Speaker 1: the code talker program for Navajo code. It was just
Speaker 1: that hard and that nuanced. Amazing. Alright, let's take another break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty I'm pretty jazzed up here. Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and talk about how this how
Speaker 1: this really affected the war right after this alright, So,
Speaker 1: like we said, at this point in the war, when
Speaker 1: they were brought in uh, the Navajo code talkers, it
Speaker 1: was the fighting in Europe was dwindling and the Pacific
Speaker 1: Theater is where things were really happening. And so the
Speaker 1: first action for the actual Navajo code talkers were at Guadalcanal.
Speaker 1: And I hope we didn't paint a picture that they're
Speaker 1: sitting in offices, talking to one another in an air
Speaker 1: conditioned office on telephones and just sending orders to like
Speaker 1: go bomb this place on Saturday. Uh. A lot of
Speaker 1: times these men are on the front lines and relaying
Speaker 1: um positions and uh, what's what it's like on the
Speaker 1: ground and what's going on. It wasn't just directives to
Speaker 1: go do this. Uh. They were relaying important information like
Speaker 1: live in the moment on the front lines. And to
Speaker 1: add to this, there was confusion a lot of times,
Speaker 1: even among American soldiers. Like to an American soldier fifty
Speaker 1: feet away, a Navajo code talker might look like a Japanese. Uh. Person,
Speaker 1: were these like the very dumbest soldiers of all? I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I mean it's on record that there
Speaker 1: was friendly fire because of this, So so they were
Speaker 1: actually fired on. I saw that, like they had like
Speaker 1: guns pointed at them at some point and would be
Speaker 1: like marched over to be interrogated. It was such that
Speaker 1: they felt like they needed to assign them personal guards,
Speaker 1: which was freaking Nick Cage. And that's what that movie
Speaker 1: was about, is that he was a white soldier assigned
Speaker 1: to guard one of the Navajo cold code talkers because
Speaker 1: they were being mistaken for Japanese soldiers, right, but he
Speaker 1: was also secretly ordered to kill that code talkers then
Speaker 1: let them fall into the hands of the Japanese. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's a thing or if that was
Speaker 1: wholly created for that movie. I don't know, like it's
Speaker 1: a I don't know. I could see it go both ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't how smart the soldiers were, uh and
Speaker 1: and confusing. I don't think, right, I don't think it
Speaker 1: happened very often. And I think all it has to
Speaker 1: happen is two or three times and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden that's like part of the legend, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: But it did happen, I mean, like it was. It
Speaker 1: happened from time time. There was a guy named um,
Speaker 1: I think George McCabe who was a Navajo code talker
Speaker 1: who was taken prisoner by a fellow American UM because
Speaker 1: he was standing in a chow line on the beach
Speaker 1: at Guadalcanal, waiting to get food, and the guy was like,
Speaker 1: you look Japanese. That's exactly what he did, pointed a
Speaker 1: gun at him and said you're coming with me, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was like, uh, sorry, but no, William McCabe,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, um, but that was that's Yeah. If you
Speaker 1: look at a picture of a Navajo code talker, you
Speaker 1: look at a picture of a Japanese person, I don't
Speaker 1: see the resemblance. You should have been on the front lines,
Speaker 1: my friend. I would have been like to dude, what
Speaker 1: are you doing. Yeah. The language itself, and again this
Speaker 1: is kind of funny because the language sounds nothing like Japanese,
Speaker 1: but sometimes US radio operators would jam the frequency. I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean the grabs are said because they mistook it
Speaker 1: for Japanese. I imagine they just heard a foreign language
Speaker 1: and just jammed it. Um. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: necessarily thought it sounded like Japanese sounds sure, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: they had no idea what Japanese or Navajo even sounded like,
Speaker 1: and was just like it ain't English. Maybe they were
Speaker 1: under orders for like, yeah, if it's not an English jam, yeah,
Speaker 1: possibly could see that. So these like we said the
Speaker 1: speed was one of the real keys, and just how
Speaker 1: quickly they could get these messages delivered. Uh, and it
Speaker 1: allowed them to UH. Here's a great here's a great
Speaker 1: quote from Philip Johnson, who started the program. He said,
Speaker 1: during the first forty eight hours and UH visit Eo Jima.
Speaker 1: He said, while we were landing in consolid our short positions,
Speaker 1: I had six Navajo radio nets operating around the clock.
Speaker 1: And that period alone, they sent and received more than
Speaker 1: eight hundred messages without an error in forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred messages, no mistakes, no mistakes. That's amazing. And
Speaker 1: they're relaying these messages again in minutes and each of
Speaker 1: them would have taken hours to decode without the Navajo
Speaker 1: code talkers. There was another quote from a guy named
Speaker 1: Major Howard Conner who was on Iwo Jima as well
Speaker 1: in the Signal Corps, and he said, paraphrasing here that
Speaker 1: the Marines would not have taken Ewo Jima had it
Speaker 1: not been for the Navajo code talkers. The entire operation
Speaker 1: Yvo GiMA, you know, the very famous like flag raising statue,
Speaker 1: Zevo GiMA um basically a turning point in the Pacific
Speaker 1: that the entire operation was done in Navajo. That was
Speaker 1: what was spoken over the radios for the entire operation.
Speaker 1: It's amazing there really is. I mean, like if you
Speaker 1: think about how many American lives were saved by that,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, it was just such a direct contribution
Speaker 1: to the war. Yeah, um, he would GiMA. That was huge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's all you can say. Yeah, this this
Speaker 1: deserves its own movie treatment, like sort of like hidden figures,
Speaker 1: like these minority voices who really had this huge impact
Speaker 1: that never got their due. And you know with the
Speaker 1: Navajo code talkers, they came back to the after the
Speaker 1: war and um it was classified what went on until nine.
Speaker 1: Apparently they may have uh done this in Vietnam and career,
Speaker 1: although I don't think anyone has totally knows that for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they did not. You would think like, oh, and
Speaker 1: after nineteen sixty eight they were just put on a
Speaker 1: pedestal and praised um all throughout the United States. That
Speaker 1: is not true. They were basically sent back to the
Speaker 1: reservations with what awaited them there, which was poverty and
Speaker 1: hardship and alcoholism and disenfranchisement and um some I mean
Speaker 1: some of them we're we're lucky enough to boot strap
Speaker 1: up from military mansion. I think ones that stayed in
Speaker 1: the military afterward made a career out of it tended
Speaker 1: to do better than ones that you know, went back
Speaker 1: right after the war. Some of them were able to
Speaker 1: get into college. Um. Some of them tried to buy
Speaker 1: houses on the reservation through the g I Bill, which
Speaker 1: was very much their right as veterans after World War two. Um,
Speaker 1: But through a fluke of the treaties that put them
Speaker 1: on the reservation, they don't they didn't actually own the land.
Speaker 1: The land that they owned was held in trust, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't show the bank actually own this land or
Speaker 1: the guy am trying to buy this land from owns
Speaker 1: the land. So the g I Bill was useless for
Speaker 1: a lot of them, which is a big black eye
Speaker 1: on it was just basically par for the course for
Speaker 1: how most of them were treated afterward. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: just right back on the reservation. It was just the
Speaker 1: usual reservation life again. Nineteen sixty nine, there was a
Speaker 1: reunion at the fourth Marine Division. In seventy one, Nixon
Speaker 1: awarded them a certificate of thanks yea and a light
Speaker 1: punch in the arm. An old tricky Dick. Uh. In
Speaker 1: two August fourteenth was declared National Code Talker Day. That
Speaker 1: was for all code talkers. Yeah, not just Navajo code talkers,
Speaker 1: but those original twenty nine. We're given a Congressional Gold
Speaker 1: medal in two thousand and uh. In two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: on June four the final original code talker, Navajo code
Speaker 1: talker Chester Nez, passed away. And uh, just look at
Speaker 1: the picture of Chester Nez in Easy, just that sweet
Speaker 1: face and he's got the veteran's hat on that says
Speaker 1: Navajo code talker on it. I love those hats. Pretty amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: The the uh, the awards ceremony, so they were awarded
Speaker 1: the Congressional Medal of Honor and two thousand the original
Speaker 1: twenty nine. But when they actually presented the award in
Speaker 1: two thousand one, by that time there are only four
Speaker 1: of them left alive. And that's a big criticism too,
Speaker 1: Um that it was like, you could probably done this
Speaker 1: a little a little sooner while they were alive. Still,
Speaker 1: it might have taken sixty something years to just sort
Speaker 1: of get that ceremony in order right. They wanted to
Speaker 1: get everything just right. But that was amazing, And yeah,
Speaker 1: hopefully somebody will make a movie about it that's not
Speaker 1: mostly about Nick Cage's character the White Guy. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more about code talkers, you can
Speaker 1: search them on the internet and there's some fascinating stuff
Speaker 1: out there. Oh and Chuck, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about Navajo code talkers and you happened to ever
Speaker 1: be in Kyenta, Arizona, there's a burger king there and
Speaker 1: it has basically a Navajo code talker museum. It's basically
Speaker 1: just a case, but it counts. It qualifies as a
Speaker 1: mini museum. Sure, grab a whopper learned something. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for a listener Mayo,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this easy Bake oven follow up um
Speaker 1: from Oregon. So guys just listen to easy Bake ovens Um.
Speaker 1: I've always been a big believer in kids playing with
Speaker 1: whatever toys they want, and as a kid, I spent
Speaker 1: a great deal of time playing in the dirt with
Speaker 1: my brothers, making roads and parking lots for our hot wheels.
Speaker 1: Flash forward twenty years my son wanted me to take
Speaker 1: him to the toy store to spend some six birthday money.
Speaker 1: Sixth birthday money, I followed him as he perused the
Speaker 1: remote control cars various action figures, and he disappeared around
Speaker 1: the corner, and before I could get to the other
Speaker 1: alda find him, he came tromping back holding an easy
Speaker 1: bake oven. He asked me if he had enough money
Speaker 1: to buy it, and he did, Uh, this about twenty
Speaker 1: bucks as he As we walked to the counter, I
Speaker 1: asked him if he wanted me to carry it for
Speaker 1: him put it in a cart, because the box was
Speaker 1: about as big as he was, and he insisted on
Speaker 1: carrying it himself. Although I've always encouraged him to play
Speaker 1: with what he wants, I was surprised that he wanted
Speaker 1: to carry it himself. His dad was not always so
Speaker 1: open minded voice playing with what he called girl toys,
Speaker 1: and probably still isn't Uh. We are no longer together,
Speaker 1: needless to say. Anyway, we pay for the oven and
Speaker 1: my son carries it to the car. He won't let
Speaker 1: me put it in the trunk or even in the
Speaker 1: seat next to him. He held it on his lap
Speaker 1: the whole way home. The stories just adorbs in every way.
Speaker 1: While we were driving, he examined the box and made
Speaker 1: a harrump sound asked him what was wrong, and he said, uh,
Speaker 1: that he was mad. And asked him why. He said,
Speaker 1: the boxes pink and there's only a girl on it,
Speaker 1: but boys like to cook to Mom told him I agree.
Speaker 1: Uh so I guess you could say he has always
Speaker 1: been woke. Uh. He made many treats with his oven
Speaker 1: over the years. And I even have a photo of
Speaker 1: him somewhere wearing his Grandma's frillly cooking apron with a
Speaker 1: big smile on his face. And that is from Davina H.
Speaker 1: M Berry in Portland, Oregon. Another Emburry Is there another one? Yeah? Really? Yeah.
Speaker 1: We never really figured out how to say that last name,
Speaker 1: but there was like within the last month or two
Speaker 1: there was an m Burry. Weird. I wonder if it
Speaker 1: was her, thanks a lot to Vina. Yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it was. I think the other one was with the
Speaker 1: E that's with an eye. Huh. Yeah. I will figure
Speaker 1: it out one day. Uh. If you want to, if
Speaker 1: you're an Emberry or an Embury or whatever, you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can join us
Speaker 1: on social Just go do stuff you should know dot
Speaker 1: com and find all the links there or send us
Speaker 1: all an email. The stuff podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: is it how stuff works dot com.