A Very Important Aspect of the US Pacific War 27/12/24
The Navajo Nation is at the point where Utah , Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet. Chester born in 1921 was with the original 29 men who devised the Navajo Code and took it to battle against the Japanese. As a little boy he was in Boarding School and punished for speaking his native language. He came from Checkerboard area of New Mexico. His sister Dora remained there and died in 2007 still without electricity. The US diversity of color, of background of language contributes to its strength.
The Code Talker was such a secret that it was classified till 1966 that is 23 years after the war.
1920s His family lived as subsistence formers with goats and sheep, which together was a good combination. It was unusual for an ewe to ignore her lamb but common for goats to neglect their kids. Breakfast was blue cornmeal mush and goats milk. They kept the flock constantly moving this also made it more difficult for predators. His mother had died a few years earlier when he was small, burial places were kept secret. The animals ate pinon and juniper branches and often they cut them off the tree where they were too high up to feed the livestock The liked porcupine meat which was like pork but had to be boiled a long time. From wools and yucca the make rugs which were traded when they needed coffee salt or flour.
The arrival of the Spanish and later the other Europeans had shrunk the reservation. Then there was the Long Walk 1866 where Navajos were moved 350 miles from Fort Defiance to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. The walk too 20 days and hundreds died in it from sickness or by the soldiers. This long walk build the nationhood of the Navajo shared history.
The government wanted them to learn English and to enter the work market. The were sent to missionary's Tohachi boarding schools and were assigned names. They were always hungry even after a meal. Later he was sent to Fort Defiance School. The school was meant to erase all the learned at home. This fort was build by Colonel Sumner in 1850s to squash a Navajo uprising. They had to have mandatory haircuts and issued school uniforms. The fields around were used to cultivate vegetables for the school. He sang in a Cattolic choir and was and alter boy. Navajo religion has respect for all things in nature, and corn pollen is used instead of holy water.
The Great Livestock massacre's. To deal with the drought and dustbowl the FDR government brought out laws to reduce livestock and overgrazing The Navajo were initially told to sell off their animal. This was a "voluntary" program from 1933, but in 1935 it became mandatory. This was to stop overgrazing and the dust bowl. Three quarter of the animal were corralled burned and buried by bulldozers. Some Navajo families were paid a pittance of $3 per head of animal. The livestock quota system is still being used today , it also resulted in the end of communal lands and the year round migration. The government promised that education would lead to jobs in New Deal public works.
During holidays at home adults asked him to translate letters into Englsih and gave him gifts of candy but more than that was the respect he received.
In Gallup ,New Mexico her went to high school where the classes were in English but they were allowed to speak their native language.
1923 the Great Earthquake struck Japan destroying half of Tokyo, this lead to an economic disaster which was part of the cause of the Japanese invasion of China by 1937.
1941 America shocked by Japans violence in China , nationalized Japanese assets in the US and Japan then signed an alliance with Germany.
1941 7th Dec. Attack on Pearl Harbour.
From April 1942 recruiters called for men fluent in English and Navajo and joining the marines would mean leaving school and the reservation. 200 recruits from Widow Rock capital of the Navajo nation applied. These were men who had no birth certificate and so could add a year to their birthdate. Their original 29 were taken to Fort Wingate New Mexico. Civil engineer Phillip Johnston who grew up as the son of a missionary's couple in Navajo proposed the idea, since the language was not written and couldn't be learned from book. Also it was a language that resisted adopting English words and kept on inventing their own words. In the normal way it took hours to transmit coded messages here it could be done in seconds.
They had to learn basic training and had to learn to swim but most of them could and they were far fitter than other marines. They had to learn Morse Code, semaphore and how to fix radios. There were women in the marines, in the car pool, nurses and the food service.
Someone who had worked with codes taught them you have to have a word for each letter of the alphabet eg. A for ant then the used the Navajo word for ant. They had to invent words for different army ranks. A hand granade became a a potato, bombs =eggs and Japanese =slant-eyes. While in a base near San Diago they heard that Indians would not be served alcohol. So they crossed the open border to Tijuana.
The Japanese had managed to crack every US code used till when they Code speakers arrived. They were not allowed to reveal their mission to the other marines.
Guadalcanal Invasion Nov 1942 Part of the Solomon Islands. First Aircraft Carriers sent planes to dive bomb the beaches before they invaded. 13 Code Talkers arrived with General Vandergrift's 1st Marine Division. Then to keep safe the 3 aircraft carriers withdrew. Cruisers protected the transport ships that brought supplies. The Battle of the Savo Island was the worst defeat for the US Navy and it left the troops on Guadalcanal exposed. However the Marines captured Henderson Airfield. Over 20 thousand Japanese were on the island before they arrived. The Japanese here would not surrender part of Bashido philosophy. They believed that by divine right should rule the world. To Americans capture was no dishonor.
Soldiers carried salt pills and Sulphur to put on wounds and Sulpha drugs the precursor of antibiotics and 2 mosquito nets. Radio the size of a shoe box weighted 30 pound. Immediately the battle began their code became indispensable the Navajo words were never written only spoken. When positions were given of the enemy it had to be accurate.
In the past marines instead of the Shackle Code spoke English with lots of profane words to confuse the enemy.A daisy cutter is a bomb that explodes sideways. There was always the rotting smell of decomposing bodies.
Grande Terra was the largest of the New Caledonian Islands. With the help of dogs they knew if an enemy bunker was empty or occupied. Dogs also located snipers in trees and at night could sniff out hostiles and the indicated this by putting up their tails. Almost everyone got sores that festered and they called this" jungle rot" dysentery dehydration, typhus caused by insects, malaria from mosquitoes, for which they took atabrine.
November 1942 in a 3 day battle the US Navy sunk 30 Japanese ships and damaged 9 other ships. By flying aircraft from Henderson Field another 4 Japanese transports were destroyed. The Japanese Navy withdrew from Guadalcanal taking troops and supplies. Now most of the troops of Division were taken to Australia for R&R at the Australian Port City of Darwin that had been badly damaged by Japanese attack just like Pearl Harbour. The marines could not afford to release the Code talkers.
Used cans with a few pebbles were attached to a string around the camp so they would make a noise by tripping at night. There were plenty of crocodiles' and crabs that could clip your finger off. New Code talkers arrived and were each attached to a veteran. Japanese troops were on Mount Austen but Japanese but the Japanese Navy managed to quietly evacuate them thus by Feb 1943 Guadalcanal was secure, this was the longest of the Pacific war battles and had lasted 6 months. Most of the native population now started coming out of hiding and brought wounded and children and the corpsmen treated them.
1943 Preparations were begun to attack Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It was the army that provided most of the entertainment. Admiral Chester Nimitz controlled forces from the Pacific Ocean Areas Command through the Solomon Island. Supreme Allied Commander Douglas Mc Author was taking the north coast of New Guinea and nearby islands. These forces included US, Australia and N. Zealand as well as the Netherlands. After a battle dead bodies began to decompose and a lot of DDT was sprinkled on them but did not stop flies and maggots.
Over 1,000 US soldiers and 7000 Japanese died here. Marines enjoyed a special comradie and would trust their lives to each other.
They returned to Guadalcanal for retraining, they had to expand the code vocabulary for new equipment like the Bazooka which came in 1943. In N. Africa the Germans captured some and made their our.
Guam was US territory since 1900 but was capture by Japan in late 1941. Operation Forager was against the Mariana Island, Saipan ,Tintan and Guam. Soldiers found that by not wearing underwear it was easier to stay dry in the tropical climate. Officers mixed with men and often removed signs of rank as these made them targets.
The Navajos had to transmit messages asking for ammunition and had to keep moving after a transmission to avoid attacks. A man who could get the troops supplies they needed was invaluable. The Chamorro natives came out of hiding when the Japanese had been defeated and climbed the coconut palms with a rope to get food. The Natives also gave information about where the Japanese. This Island was taken in 3 weeks by August 30 1944.
The Japanese had not managed to get their code. At this time all black and white soldiers were segregated even their blood supplies, but the marines put absolute trust into the Navajos. Captured Japanese were given medical care and fed on soldiers rations at a time that it was believed all captured US troops had been killed. From Guam the left by C47 planes back to Guadalcanal.
1944 Sept Peleliu in the Palau Island chain 470 miles from the Philippines. It is an island with about 500 caves and the Japanese had fortified these, it is also heavily covered with vegetation. The used flame throwers and the enemy would run from these bunkers on fire. The soldiers had a shortage of water were sent from the ship oil barrels of water that tasted oily. These Islands housed the Japanese administration headquarters of the South Pacific.
Anguar also Palau chain The first night here they heard the voice of Tokyo Rose blasted from a Japanese loudspeaker. Here 2 Navajos were regarded as Japanese and they told them to call the communication officer to confirm who they were. Bull dozers were used here and the sealed many bunkers. Many US troops mistook Navajo on the radio for Japanese.
The term code talker had not yet been coined but Marines were warned not to call the Navajos or Indians. Letters from the US routinely took 8 months to arrive and orders were that they had to destroy them after reading.
Peleiliu had the highest casualty rate in the South Pacific 1500 US troops were killed and 6,700 wounded or missing.
11,000 Japanese killed many of them Korean laborers. Wounded Japanese after too many had attacked the sescuers were shot or just left. Peleliu was necessary to take to get to the Philippines but Mc Arthur got there a month before Peleliu was secured and the media coverage was on MacArthur.
A Navajo soldier was captured and forced to decode the messages but he was incapable of that. After that the code talkers were given body guards by the Marines.
Jan 1945 Iwo Jima was the home of no indigenous animal life. This Island had been colonized by Japan in the 1800s and was the eventual gateway to attacking Japan. At this point the author was sent home.
Code talkers took part in every major battle of the Pacific War. Had the Japanese managed to decode this the war would have turned out differently. He was at hospital in S. Frisco with battle fatigue. He was warned not to talk about the code
1945 May German Surrender it then took another 4 months for the Japanese to surrender.
1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima 6th August and Nagasaki 9th August. The observation of what the atomic blast had done was transmitter back home by Navajo code.2nd Sept Japan capitulates.
Native American were made US citizens in 1924 they only got the vote in 1948 after he finished his service. He got home to Gallup by Greyhound bus. They never discussed the war in front of children so that they would not glorify war.
He wanted to get an education so as not to remain on the Checkerboard all his life. The Haskell High School later became the Haskell Indian Nations University. With his experience as a marine he expected to fit into mainstream America. Using the GI Bill he went to the University of Kansas to become a commercial artist.
1952 Married and had a family and job and lived in Albuquerque, N M.
1968 The Code Talkers could break their silence. He spoke at Harvard about his WW2 experience. 1971 President Richard Nixon honored the code talkers. 1982 President Ronald Reagan declared August 14th National Code Talkers Day. Under President Bill Clinton the original 29 code takers were given gold medals and the others were given silver. By War end there were about 400 code talkers 13 had been killed in action.
2002 Windtalkers movie. After this he became in demand as a speaker Larry King, 60minutes, Today Show and National Geographic.
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