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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Kandiskip Sunshine by staff writer Jane Gray. We

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Speaker 1: got an email from one of our favorite listeners named Shiro,

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Speaker 1: and he is just full of so many wonderful ideas

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Speaker 1: for the podcast, and one of the ideas he suggested

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Speaker 1: to us was the Navajo code talkers. And I got

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Speaker 1: really excited about Sharew's idea, and as as did Jane,

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Speaker 1: and so we thought, well, that's it, We're going to

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Speaker 1: do it. So you could very well be the next

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Speaker 1: lucky person whose idea gets podcasted about. So email us

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Speaker 1: at podcast at how stuff works dot com and now

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Speaker 1: on with the Navajos. That's right, And to give you

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Speaker 1: the context, we have the idea that codes in war

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Speaker 1: are very important because the Japanese and World War Two

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Speaker 1: were able to um basically tap into communications between the

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Speaker 1: Allied forces and intercept these communications. They are sometimes able

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Speaker 1: to take issue false commands even and like organize ambushes

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Speaker 1: on Allied troops. And so obviously the Allies had to

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Speaker 1: come up with codes that were inevitably broken by the

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Speaker 1: Japanese and Japanese were so good at code breaking, uh

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Speaker 1: that they would break every code that the Allies came

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Speaker 1: up with. And this is so frustrating. The Japanese had

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Speaker 1: even sent some of their men to the United States

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Speaker 1: to study the language. Then you English perfectly, they could

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Speaker 1: imitate the accent and the Germans, who the Navajo code

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Speaker 1: talkers didn't really have to interact with, but we're still

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Speaker 1: a major force. In World War Two. They sent some

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Speaker 1: of their men over to Native American reservations and the

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Speaker 1: United States to pose as art dealers and other, you know,

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Speaker 1: anthropologists that they could pick up on Native American languages

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Speaker 1: because the United States was known to have used Choctaw

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Speaker 1: and other as many as I think eighteen different tribes

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Speaker 1: influences from their languages and World War One. So and

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Speaker 1: that's one thing I hadn't heard about was the use

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Speaker 1: of the American Indian languages in World War One. And

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that I believe it was Hitler who had

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Speaker 1: had these anthropologists go over that he had the foresight

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Speaker 1: to at least try to understand these languages to break

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Speaker 1: any codes that the Americans would come up with. And

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Speaker 1: so it was a monumental task. And because World War

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Speaker 1: two was conducted over a span of islands that were

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Speaker 1: thousands of miles apart, and some instances the United States

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Speaker 1: had to have a way of sending messages that the

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Speaker 1: Japanese would not interpret, and it was really sort of

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Speaker 1: a lost cause until Philip Johnston, who was raised on

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Speaker 1: a Navajo reservation with his missionary parents, went to enable

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Speaker 1: station in Los Angeles and said, I've got this idea. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the Navajo language is virtually unknown to any more than

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Speaker 1: like forty non Navajos. It's almost impossible to understand. It's

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Speaker 1: completely oral, it's never been written down. I think that

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Speaker 1: this might really work. That's right. And it also was

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Speaker 1: a great advantage because it was so fast to to

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Speaker 1: use as a code. Codes Before that it took hours

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Speaker 1: to send INDEC a message sent through among Allied troops

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Speaker 1: and the machines at the very least would take thirty minutes,

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Speaker 1: and compared this to about twenty seconds that it took

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Speaker 1: Navajos to code and decode a message. When Philip Johnston

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Speaker 1: had them demonstrated, it was just whild the celerity with

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Speaker 1: which they worked, and not just the speed, but the

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Speaker 1: accuracy too. And Johnston really was advocating for the Navajos

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Speaker 1: language to be used because the Navajos had been educated

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Speaker 1: in American schools. And let me give you guys a

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Speaker 1: little bit of background on this. Uh, the Navajos were

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Speaker 1: pretty much isolated in the southwest United States. They they

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Speaker 1: had their home between what they called the Four Sacred Mountains,

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Speaker 1: and so their language is very much consolidated within this area,

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Speaker 1: and language is essential to their culture. They believe that

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Speaker 1: the universe and language were sort of created in tandem,

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Speaker 1: the first four words being light, earth, water, and air.

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Speaker 1: And it's a very precise language too, and different inflections

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Speaker 1: and different tonalities convey entirely different meanings. So the Navajos

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Speaker 1: were within this this corner of the United States, within

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Speaker 1: the Four Sacred Mountains, and gradually they began to be

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Speaker 1: pushed out, first by Spanish invaders and then by the

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Speaker 1: United States. And General Sherman of Civil War fame is

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Speaker 1: very well known for discussing what he called the Navajo

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Speaker 1: problem and beginning the process of eradication. And he was

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Speaker 1: even quoted as saying that their attempts at civilization are ridiculous.

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Speaker 1: And so the Navajos were pushed out of their reservation

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Speaker 1: and they were. They were made to go live in

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Speaker 1: New Mexico until eighteen sixty eight when a leader named

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Speaker 1: Barbon Scudo negotiated for the Navajo to return to their

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Speaker 1: land and in exchange, their children would be raised in

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Speaker 1: US schools and completely give up their culture. And it

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Speaker 1: got to a point where children who even spoke the

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Speaker 1: Navajo language and were overheard were um, we're beaten or

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Speaker 1: punished on their mouths, were washed out. So essentially the

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Speaker 1: Navajo culture had been somewhat annihilated and completely brushed aside,

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Speaker 1: and then it rose back up into question again. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and thank goodness that it wasn't I hated completely because

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Speaker 1: it ended up saving battle, saving lives in World War Two.

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Speaker 1: And some Navajos recount that when they heard the music

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Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, there were as many as a hundred men

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Speaker 1: who went to enable station to report for duty, and

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Speaker 1: they even brought their own weapons in some cases, because

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Speaker 1: Navaja cultures very much rooted and the idea of protecting

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Speaker 1: the homeland, even the homeland that had spurned them for

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Speaker 1: so long. Right and um, not all Navajos were code talkers,

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Speaker 1: but many of them were. It's estimated between three and

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Speaker 1: about four twenty Navajos served as code talkers, and it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to note how the code actually worked because the

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Speaker 1: language itself was very complex. Only about thirty non Navajos

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Speaker 1: actually spoke the language in the world like on the planet.

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Speaker 1: But they added an extra twist to the code that

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Speaker 1: made it even more difficult. And that was even if

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Speaker 1: you translated all these Navajos a Navajo words into English correctly,

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Speaker 1: it was still sound like a random chain of words.

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Speaker 1: And that was because what you're supposed to do when

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Speaker 1: you got the message was only take the first letter

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Speaker 1: of the English translation and put those together to make

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Speaker 1: an understandable message. And what made it so unique was

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Speaker 1: that there were plenty of military terms that the Navajos

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Speaker 1: didn't have words for it all. So something like hummingbird

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Speaker 1: would refer to a fighter plane, and a dive bomber

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Speaker 1: would be a chicken hawk. So there was this added

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Speaker 1: layer of mystery. And even when they thought that the

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Speaker 1: enemy might be getting too close to figuring out what

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Speaker 1: the words stood for, they would take the letter A

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Speaker 1: and come up with three different English words that could

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Speaker 1: be derived from it. That's right, So they mixed it

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Speaker 1: up and like as you say, not all over. Its

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Speaker 1: had to be UM spilled out letter by litter. They

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Speaker 1: had those code words that UM were still shrouded in

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Speaker 1: a level of mystery. So the high point of the

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Speaker 1: Navajo code came after the demonstration that Johnston conducted for

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Speaker 1: General Clayton B. Vogel, and that's when Jane mentioned. He

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Speaker 1: demonstrated that a message that could take as much as

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Speaker 1: thirty minutes to transmit via a cryptograph or other machine

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Speaker 1: took twenty seconds for the Navajos. And the three hundred

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Speaker 1: eighty second Platoon Coding Unit was formed and recruiters from

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Speaker 1: the Marines went to different reservations to get Navajos and UM.

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Speaker 1: They had an outpouring of response, and some of the

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Speaker 1: men lied on their applications because they were too young

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Speaker 1: to go, and at least one lied because he was

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Speaker 1: too old to go. And they went to boot camp

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Speaker 1: just like any other recruit and then they were taken

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Speaker 1: to Camp Elliott to develop their code and it was

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Speaker 1: never ever ever written down, and it evolved from two

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Speaker 1: hundred eleven to four hundred eleven words, and the Navaja

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Speaker 1: were given a lot of creative freedom and developing the

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Speaker 1: code on their own. That's right, and to go back

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Speaker 1: to how complex the code was, even when Navajo soldier

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Speaker 1: who was actually not trained in the code. This this

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Speaker 1: soldier was not trained, but he understood the Navaho language.

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Speaker 1: When he was captured in Baton by the access troops,

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Speaker 1: they ordered him to try to translate it, and he

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Speaker 1: never understood what the message was. Because of the added

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Speaker 1: complexity of the code. That sort of gave rise to

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Speaker 1: the premise on which the Nicholas Cage maybe wind Talkers

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Speaker 1: is based. And that's the idea that for every Navajo

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Speaker 1: co talker in the field there was a secret bodyguard

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Speaker 1: who followed him and was supposed to kill him if

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Speaker 1: he were captured, so that he couldn't show the code.

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Speaker 1: And we don't never for sure if that was actually

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Speaker 1: a component of the Navajo co talker equation. The military

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Speaker 1: is not confirming or denying it, but it's, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of interesting to think about. It's an interesting

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Speaker 1: twist to the story, that's right. And one of the

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Speaker 1: great quotes that I found about their significance to the

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Speaker 1: war in general was from the Battle of the Regima.

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Speaker 1: There was a Major Howard Conner who was an officer

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Speaker 1: there and he had six Navjo code talkers are working

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Speaker 1: around the clock during the battle, and he said later on,

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Speaker 1: we're not for the Navajos, and Marines would have never

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Speaker 1: taken you Agima. Yeah, on Agia. It was amazing. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about almost a thirty six day long battle with

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Speaker 1: about forty eight straight hours of coding and translating and decoding.

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Speaker 1: About eight hundred messages were sent without a single mistake.

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Speaker 1: It is incredible. And the irony is that when the

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Speaker 1: Navajo co talk walkers, they were the first twenty nine

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Speaker 1: one of the thirty that were originally recruited UM dropped

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Speaker 1: out after after training. The first twenty nine two stayed

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Speaker 1: behind went over to the battlefields. UM. They weren't used

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Speaker 1: at first because people weren't sure that they could really

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Speaker 1: trust them in the thick of battle, and they thought

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Speaker 1: that troops might be too caught up in military maneuvers

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Speaker 1: to really need their codes, and so it took a

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Speaker 1: while to build trust for the Navajos to be used

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Speaker 1: for their intended purpose. At first, they were just used

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Speaker 1: for running messages. They were just runners, and others were

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Speaker 1: you know, handed weapons and and told to fight. But

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Speaker 1: little did they know, and the Marine raiders where the

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Speaker 1: group that really put them to the test, and they

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Speaker 1: proved themselves especially um it's Sapan. One group of allies

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Speaker 1: was being bombed by their own men and they didn't know,

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Speaker 1: and they kept trying to radio to say stop stop,

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Speaker 1: this is us, you know, And finally they were able

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Speaker 1: to say, have you got a Navaho code talker there?

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Speaker 1: And as soon as the Navajo code talker sent the

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Speaker 1: message that these were friendly troops that they're firing on,

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Speaker 1: the firing immediately ceased. So the power that they how

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Speaker 1: it was just immeasurable. And what's sad is that after

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Speaker 1: Irrigima was taken and after you know, the bombs were

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Speaker 1: dropped on Japan and and the war was in assence over,

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Speaker 1: the Navajo co talkers were discharged and they couldn't really

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Speaker 1: talk about what their contribution to the war how no

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Speaker 1: matter how great it was, um, because it's still the

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Speaker 1: the Marines wanted to keep a hold on it to

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Speaker 1: use in future battles or what have you, and so

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Speaker 1: it actually remained classified until at least nineteen which is

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Speaker 1: just you can think of, like, think of what contribution

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Speaker 1: you made to the country that you know has betrayed

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Speaker 1: your people. In the past and you've done so much

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Speaker 1: great work and you come home and you can't talk

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Speaker 1: about it. It made it difficult for the co talkers

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Speaker 1: who returned to the reservation and those who went out

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Speaker 1: to seek jobs, because they couldn't account for what they've

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Speaker 1: been doing with the past couple of years of their lives,

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Speaker 1: and they couldn't say what they've been doing. They you know,

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Speaker 1: had to either fabricate stories or keep silent. And we

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Speaker 1: know today there are plenty of soldiers who are coming

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Speaker 1: home and you know they they have these dreams and

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Speaker 1: awful memories and psychological uh reckonings that they're they're dealing

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Speaker 1: with after all that they witnessed in war and I

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Speaker 1: Regima especially, we're talking about a volcano where the Japanese

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Speaker 1: were lucky enough to have dug trenches, but the Americans

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Speaker 1: were fighting on top, covered and volcanic dust, being slaughtered

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Speaker 1: all the Japanese had orders to kill at least ten Americans,

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Speaker 1: and the Navajo has had to come home and have

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Speaker 1: these memories and they couldn't talk about them, and they

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Speaker 1: couldn't share them. They had no way to really get

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Speaker 1: help for dealing with the after effects of war and

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Speaker 1: so when the information was declassified and they were finally

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Speaker 1: honored for their service, we we see that, you know,

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Speaker 1: these things are still coming up. The Navajo co talkers

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Speaker 1: are still talking about the memories that they have, and

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Speaker 1: it is I mean, it's testament to how well it

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Speaker 1: worked that the Marines still wanted to use it, because

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Speaker 1: it's true the Japanese never broke it, and assessment to

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Speaker 1: how effective they were and how great soldiers they were.

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Speaker 1: And so finally we see that they were paid homage

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Speaker 1: back in two thousand one, uh four of the five

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Speaker 1: living original twenty nine were honored with Congressional Gold medals,

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Speaker 1: and others that went in succession after the first twenty

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Speaker 1: nine they were given Congressional Silver medals. Built on about time, definitely,

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Speaker 1: So if you want to read more about the Navajos

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Speaker 1: and about how code breakers work, be sure to check

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Speaker 1: out our articles on how stuff works dot com for

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com