These Native Americans helped win two wars.
In November, people in South Dakota celebrated Veterans Day and Native American
Heritage Month with a series of events honoring a special group of Sioux Indians.
These Indians worked as “code talkers” during World War Two. Code talkers used
their native languages to develop secret codes for the U.S. military. They also risked
their lives to send and translate these important messages.
The first code talkers were Cherokee and Choctaw Indians who served during World
War One. Because their languages were unknown outside their tribes, no enemy
experts were able to break their codes. Their efforts were so effective that more Native
American groups were recruited for World War Two.
About 33 different Native American tribes have been identified as being involved
in code talking programs. But even though their efforts helped win two world wars,
most Americans did not learn about code talkers until 1968, because the programs
were classified, or officially secret. They remained classified because the military
wanted to be able to use these codes in future wars.
Only in the last 15 years, have the code talkers been officially honored. In 2000, the
famous Navajo code talkers received Congressional Gold Medals. And in 2008, 33
tribes were honored with these medals, including the Sioux Indians of South Dakota.
Their medals were part of a traveling exhibit in November.
Navajo code talkers became famous
for their role at Iwo Jima.
During World War Two, the U.S. Marines relied on Navajo speakers for their
most important coded messages. The Navajo language was perfect for secret
codes for several reasons. First of all, Navajo is a very complicated tonal language.
This means that words spoken at different pitches often have different meanings.
Another factor was that there was no written version of Navajo at this time. This
made it impossible for others to learn it from books.
Navajo code talkers created written versions of common words and used them
for military terms. For example, the Navajo word “besh-lo” meant “iron fish,” so
“besh-lo” became the code word for “submarine.” When they needed to spell out
proper nouns like names of people and places, they used Navajo words for letters
of the alphabet, like “ant” for the letter A, and so on. This made the code even more
complicated.
Navajo code talkers helped the Marines win many important battles during World
War Two. One of them was the famous Battle of Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima is a small
island in the South Pacific Ocean, which was being used as an airstrip by Japanese
forces. Six Navajo code talkers, operating radios around the clock, gave orders
for this battle while the Marines landed and took up their positions. In 1992, the
Navajo code talkers were officially honored with an exhibit in the Pentagon. Eight
years later the original 29 Navajo code talkers got the Congressional Gold Medal.