• Originally published November 6, 2009 at 7:06 p.m., updated November 9, 2009 at midnight

he second program of the Victoria College 2009-10 Lyceum lecture series is scheduled for Tuesday at noon (Nov. 10) in the Fine Arts Auditorium on campus. Zonnie Gorman will deliver a multimedia presentation on a significant, but relatively unknown, piece of World War II history.

In what promises to be a fascinating and enlightening hour, Gorman relates the inside story of a small group of Native Americans from the Navajo nation, including her father Carl, who took part in a highly classified operation that played a crucial role in the defeat of the Japanese in the Pacific theater of the war.

Once the highest levels of command were convinced of their potential value, approximately 400 Navajo men were recruited to the United States Marine Corps to serve as communications specialists beginning in 1942. Their primary responsibility was to transmit tactical messages, such as troop movements, over military telephone and radio equipment as U.S. amphibious forces began an arduous and bloody "island hopping" strategy from the South Pacific northward to Japan.

The men were dubbed "code talkers" for a secret code they devised based on their native language, and which proved critical to American efforts by allowing for secure communications at a crucial turning point in the war.

The Japanese had proven themselves adept at breaking every Allied code prior to 1942. Partly as a result of their ability to know what the allied forces were planning, they appeared to be winning the war in the Pacific in those early years.

Once the Navajo code was implemented in mid-1942, the Japanese were totally confounded, failing to decipher it at all for the duration of the war. This is not surprising, given military estimates at the time that there were less than 30 non-Navajos in the world who could understand the language, none of them Japanese (from the Naval History & Heritage Web site, www.history.navy.mil).

The Navajo language, which has no written alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, has complex grammar, unusual syntax (word order) and tonal qualities that have no equivalence in any major language on Earth. The first group of 29 Navajos to complete boot camp developed an elaborate code, a substitution cipher based on Navajo words. They also coined many new military-related terms for which there were no words in their language (e.g., tank became the Navajo word for turtle) and then put the completed code into a dictionary for use by later Navajo recruits. Each code talker had to memorize the dictionary because it was never to leave the confines of the military base in California where the men trained.

After testing under high-stress conditions, this first group left training camp for the war front in mid 1942. From then through the end of the war in 1945, the code talkers transmitted thousands of messages containing vital battlefield communications in noteworthy Pacific theater battles such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Iwo Jima as the amphibious forces moved north.

After initially suffering from the skepticism and some prejudice on the part of their fellow Marines, the code talkers became an integral part of the Allied effort. In addition to devising the "unbreakable code," they were praised throughout the war for their speed and accuracy. In an early test under simulated combat conditions used to convince the commanding general of the Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet of the Navajo language's potential value as code, a three-line English message was encoded, transmitted and decoded in 20 seconds - a process that took machines at the time 30 minutes to complete (from the Naval History & Heritage Web site, www.history.navy.mil).

The code talkers' contributions to the Allied victory went largely unrecognized until many years following the end of the war. Also used in Korea and the early years of Vietnam, the code-talking operation was classified "top secret" until the late 1960s. It was not until 1982 that President Ronald Reagan designated Aug. 14 as Navajo Code Talkers Day and presented a Certificate of Recognition to surviving members.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a law awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the 29 original members of the group. The medals were presented by President George W. Bush in 2001. The 2007 Code Talker Recognition Act (H.R. 4544, introduced Dec. 13, 2007), recognized all code talkers who served in the U.S. military, awarding them this same medal.

The code talkers' story, in addition to being a fascinating wartime tale, also serves up several important reminders. All cultures have potentially unique contributions to offer us, if we are open to them. The representation in history and in art forms such as film of a particular group is another issue raised by this fascinating story. Is it fair and real, or not? Finally, as we approach another Veteran's Day with our freedoms intact, their story evokes poignantly the sacrifices that generations of men and women in uniform, from all walks of life, have made on behalf of us all in service to our country.

Zonnie Gorman gives her perspective on these and other issues as she speaks about the Navajo culture, "Hollywoodized" portrayals of the story such as the 2002 film, "Windtalkers," and many little-known details of the code talkers' activities. Please plan to attend her lecture and multimedia presentation Tuesday at noon. Hope to see you all.

 

Dave Ticen is the chair and a long-time member of The Victoria College Lyceum Committee. He is a librarian in charge of user education at the VC/UHV Library.

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