FReeper Canteen ~ August 14th, National Navajo Code Talkers Day ~ 15 August 2024

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[Kathy in Alaska]

The FReeper Canteen Presents…..

~ August 14th…National Navajo Code Talkers Day! ~

On July 26, 2001, the original 29 Code Talkers were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush. This long awaited recognition occurred 56 years after World War II despite the fact that
the Code saved thousands of lives. The Code had been de-classified in 1968.

Canteen Mission Statement

Showing support and boosting the morale of
our military and our allies military
and family members of the above.
Honoring those who have served before.

The Navajo Code Talkers received no recognition until the declassification of the operation in 1968. In 1982, the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by President Ronald Reagan, who also named August 14 "National Navaho Code Talkers Day."

How Great Thou Art ~ Choctaw

During World War II (1939-1945), the U.S. Marines trained Navajo soldiers as code talkers. During military campaigns in the Pacific, the Navajo soldiers relayed secret messages about troop movements and enemy locations in the Navajo language. Because of the complexity of the language, the Japanese were never able to decipher the code.

The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently.

Johnston, reared on the Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the military's search for a code that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages--notably Choctaw--had been used in World War I to encode messages.

Johnston believed Navajo answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training.

It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. One estimate indicates that less than 30 non-Navajos could understand the language at the outbreak of World War II.

In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training.

Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers' primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed general Marine duties.

In this photograph, two Navajo Indians, Corporal Henry Bake, Jr., left, and Private First Class George H. Kirk, operate a portable radio set in a clearing they created in the dense jungle close to the front lines.

Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.

The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines.

Cousins, Preston and Frank Toledo - Ballarat, Australia.
The Navajo code talkers even stymied a Navajo soldier taken prisoner at Bataan. (About 20 Navajos served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines.) The Navajo soldier, forced to listen to the jumbled words of talker transmissions, said to a code talker after the war, "I never figured out what you guys who got me into all that trouble were saying."

In a ceremony in the Capitol on July 26, 2001, the original twenty-nine Navajo "code talkers" received the Congressional Gold Medal, and subsequent code talkers received the Congressional Silver Medal.

It is the only unbroken code in modern military history. It baffled the Japanese forces of WWII. In fact, during test evaluations, Marine cryptologists said they couldn't even transcribe the language, much less decode it.

Click for more.

Chester Nez, the last original Navajo Code Talker, dies at 93.

012321 ~ 060414

RIP

Honoring A Hero ~ Chester Nez

The last of the living WWII heroes share their stories

Please remember that The Canteen is here to support
and entertain our troops and veterans and their families,
and is family friendly.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma ~ Code Talkers

[left that other site]

Hi Everybody!

(((HUGS)))

[Ingtar]

It is good to know that my wedding anniversary falls on such an auspicious day. 42 years and counting.

[PROCON]

Hi Kathy, thanks for tonight’s Canteen and for honoring and remembering these remarkable men who served America with pride.

[no-to-illegals]

May God Bless the Code Talkers. The * Code * never broken …..

[firebrand]

An FBI guy told me one time that the Japanese tried capturing their own Navajo to help them out but unfortunately for them there are different dialects just as there are in other languages and they soon found that they had the wrong Navajo.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, ML...(HUGS))...hope you are enjoying some nice summer days.

[Fungi]

Bttt

[ansel12]

Always the Marines and the Navajos, the great Army history of Indian code talkers that stretched from their Army using origins in WWI through all Army theaters of WWII, the Pacific, Africa, and Europe, and also using quite a few different tribes.

At least the Choctaw of WWI get a mention.

[Kathy in Alaska]

~ August 14th, National Navajo Code Talkers Day ~

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Honoring those who have served before.

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[PeterPrinciple]

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/59171/why-couldnt-japan-crack-the-navajo-code-in-ww2-when-they-captured-a-navajo-nat

The Japanese captured a Navajo POW, Joe Kieyoomia, who wasn’t part of the Code Talker program. He was forced to listen to the transmissions by his captors. The Japanese had studied the Navajo transmissions and had narrowed it down through a lengthy process (I can’t understand Japanese so can’t read the primary sources. Sorry for the vagueness), to figure out it was Navajo. Kieyoomia listened into these transmissions and heard phrases like “Red soil ahead” among all of the organizational information that was also coded. He thought it was complete gibberish, and told the Japanese that it made no sense. The Japanese thought he was lying, and tortured him regularly to extract more information about the Navajo language and code out of him. I don’t feel as though Kieyoomia’s resistance to Japanese efforts led the Japanese to believe that it really was just the language, and such limited their code breaking efforts there.

[PeterPrinciple]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Kieyoomia

Joe Lee Kieyoomia (November 21, 1919 – February 17, 1997) was a Navajo soldier in New Mexico’s 200th Coast Artillery unit who was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of the Philippines in 1942 during World War II. Kieyoomia was a POW in Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell.[1]

The Japanese tried unsuccessfully to have him decode messages in the “Navajo Code” used by the United States Marine Corps, but although Kieyoomia understood Navajo, the messages sounded like nonsense to him because even though the code was based on the Navajo language, it was decipherable only by individuals specifically trained in its usage.[1]

Kieyoomia is notable for having not only survived the Bataan death march and related internment and torture in a concentration camp, but also being a hibakusha (survivor of an atomic bomb blast).

[Kathy in Alaska]

Happy Anniversary, Mr & Mrs Ingtar!!

Click

[Huskrrrr]

Finally, a National Holiday worth celebrating.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hello Veterans, wherever you are!!

[SkyDancer]

~ Hai Kathy! (((Hugs))) Heading out to Chicago Thursday AM ~

~

~ Welcome To My World ~

I’m Down There Somewhere

[radu]

Greetings to all at the Canteen!

To all our military men and women, past and present,

THANK YOU
for your service!

I'm glad the Code Talkers were finally publicly acknowledged, though I understand why they were kept under wraps for so long.
What a fascinating story and they couldn't tell anyone.

Very few are alive today. I periodically check on Thomas Begay and am pleased he's still alive. I still remember meeting him like it was yesterday, and it was 19 years ago.

A brief video of Thomas Begay talking about the Battle of Iwo Jima

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, Pro...so many tribes (PC?) contributed so much to the United States in several wars. We owe them a huge debt.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, no-to-illegals...they were a big part of the “win”. And never broken for sure,

[MoochPooch]

Evening, Kathy.

I’m impressed at the patriotism of our minorities back in the day.