Navajo code talkers' motivations for military service in World War II

Navajo Code Talkers

Eager to Serve: Navajo Code Talkers

The Navajo Code Talkers are a fascinating group of individuals who served in WWII as radio transmitters, mainly in the Marines.

Townsend 145) the complex and relatively unknown language of the Navajo served as a concentrated and ready made medium for transmitting military information in a secure manner to ensure the safety and integrity of military operations. The concept of Native American's serving in the military was not completely new but it took the very popular WWII as well as the indoctrination of hundreds of thousands of Native people's into the white culture, mainly through white education systems for the native peoples to eagerly seek enlistment in the American military. Although the United States basically annihilated the Native American Indian tribes, Indian men from the Navajo nation seemed more than willing to enlist in military service just fifty years later in 1941, when asked to do so specifically for the purpose of code transmission.

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The Navajo way of life had been condensed to a "civilized" version and even the language was in jeopardy. Yet, here was a representative from the U.S. military seeking the Navajo's direct assistance in a popular war movement, one where another culture was being annihilated and the Navajo answered the call eagerly, likely hoping to witness and play a part in a white and therefore allowable "warrior" tradition and possibly in the long-term earn a lasting place in history for their language and culture.

American Indians enlisted for a myriad of reasons, but the press and government offices highlighted one unique motivation and ascribed to it the position of primacy. Pearl Harbor, it appeared to whites, ignited a latent "warrior tradition" that still simmered among Native Americans. Determined to capture honor and glory in combat as their ancestors had achieved, Indians readily volunteered their service to America's armed forces. As with most news stories and government reports, a strand of truth ran through published reports, and this particular line of thought was fundamentally valid. A warrior tradition certainly encouraged numerous Indians to enlist. Warrior societies had experienced a slow disintegration with each passing year since the cessation of Indian-white hostilities. In some Indian communities, ceremonies had vanished entirely. Combat duty, then, permitted Indians who historically maintained and valued warrior societies the opportunity to revitalize tribal culture

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It is also clear from the descriptions of the manner in which the code talkers were recruited that the enlistment was considered a special and honorable act, and there are some who argue that without the code talkers the U.S. could have lost many engagements in the war, as the Navajo language was one of the only codes never broken by enemy forces in either Japan or Germany.

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In February 1942, Philip Johnston approached Major James E. Jones, Force Communications Officer at Camp Elliot in San Diego, with a plan to use the Navajo language for battlefield radio transmissions. The son of a Protestant missionary, Johnston had lived among the Navajos for more than twenty years, and, during that time, gained fluency in the native language. He explained to Major Jones that the Navajos spoke a language unlike any other Indians and added that less than a dozen anthropologists had ever studied that part of Navajo culture. Even German scholars who visited Indian communities in the 1930s, including the Nazi propagandist Dr. Colin Ross, ignored the Navajo language. In essence, this peculiar language seemed safe from enemy understanding if incorporated into the Marine Corps' communication structure.

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Johnston had successfully created a movement that might to some degree bridge the culture gap between the white culture that had overrun the native cultures and the native culture itself.

Navajo men who were recruited would likely have been relatively happy about the decision of the Marines to seek out code talkers who were actual Native members, rather than attempting to teach already enlisted white soldiers to speak and understand the Navajo language, a likely improbable task in such a short time. The value of such a decision gave the Navajo Code Talkers and the role they played a position of relative importance, and even significant danger as racial recognition was certainly possible and enemy capture would be essentially ensured if such recognition were made. This danger likely fed into the mystic of the warrior tradition, rather than detracted from the esteem of the role.

The basics of the program were such that the Navajo language was laid adjacent to a coding system that then became the mode of transmission through intimate and rapid intense training for the Navajo enlistees.

The Navajos soon demonstrated their ability to memorize the code and to send messages under adverse conditions similar to military action, successfully transmitting the code from planes, tanks, or fast-moving positions. The program was deemed so successful that an additional two hundred Navajos were recommended for recruitment as messengers on July 20, 1942. This prompted Philip Johnston to offer his services as a staff sergeant to aid in the development of the code talker program. On October 2, 1942, Johnston enlisted and began training his first class in November and spent the remainder of the war training additional Navajo recruits. After the new recruits went through the Marine Corps' basic training course, they came to Johnston for what he termed an "extremely intensive" eight-week messenger training course. As the code talker program grew, so did the development of the code. A cryptographer who monitored the code talkers' transmissions concluded that the code might be broken because using the alphabet to spell out words not in the Navajos' vocabulary produced too many repetitions. To alleviate this problem, the code talker alphabet grew from twenty-six to forty-four terms by creating alternatives for the most frequently repeated letters -- E, T, a, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L, and U. For example, in addition to designating "wol-la-chee," meaning "ant," for a, "be-la-sana" and "tse-nihl," which meant "apple" and "axe," respectively, were also designated for the letter a. The original 211 vocabulary terms were also expanded to 411.

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There is a clear sense that the development of the system was essential to the development of the role as a native American soldier and the idea that the code talker was likely supporting a member of his own native or another native nation from America on the ground likely aided in the desire to fulfill the role of a code talker. It was in fact a highly sought after position that served many fundamental and secondary purposes, not the least of which was the recognition of the value and complexity of a language that had previously been ignored and even subverted, as an "uncivilized" expression by an "uncivilized" peoples.

The Navajo like many other native tribes readily served in the WWII despite the fact that the nation had subverted and even arguably annihilated its culture and in part the reason for this was the belated recognition of culture (in this case language) by a recognized representative of white culture and society, the military. The recognition the culture received clearly stresses the importance of such a culturally foundational role, not erasing the mistakes of the past but at least moderately bandaging them. The Navajo and many other cultures thought of WWII as a just war, that could ultimately allow them the natural expression of their role in their own culture as justified warriors, and possibly saving the lives of the newest victims of genocide might also have greatly influenced and aided the cause and the rate of enlistment by Navajo and other native members.