The Contribution of Navajo Code Talkers in World War II

How did the Navajo Code Talkers (Native Americans fighting in the Pacific theater) contribute to the war effort?

What is a Navajo Cole Talker?

Answer:

The Navajo Cole Talkers were able to send secret messages on the battlefield using the Navajo language.

Explanation:

The Marine Corps recruited Navajo Code Talkers in 1941 and 1942. Philip Johnston was a WWI veteran who had heard about the successes of the Choctaw telephone squad. Johnston, although not Indian, had grown up on the Navajo reservation. In 1942, he suggested to the Marine Corps that Navajos and other tribes could be very helpful in maintaining communications secrecy. After viewing a demonstration of messages sent in the Navajo language, the Marine Corps was so impressed that they recruited 29 Navajos in two weeks to develop a code within their language. After the Navajo code was developed, the Marine Corps established a Code Talking school.

The US Marines knew they could find one in the Navajo Nation. The command of the Marine Corps chose the 29 Navajo men known as the Navajo Code Talkers to create a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language. The key word association technique used by the code was to link significant ideas and military tactics to Navajo terms.

Paul Allen Parrish was one of more than 400 Navajo men chosen for the elite U.S. Marines unit known as the Code Talkers, who used their own language to develop an unbreakable code that the Japanese never managed to decipher during World War II.