Who Are the Navajo Code Talkers?
During World War II, the United States had trouble devising codes which could not be broken by Japanese cryptologists. Those used by the US Army and Army Air Corp had both been decoded, and the Japanese were able to intercept and interpret messages regarding troop movements. In 1942, a group of Navajo Indians joined the United States Marines where they formed the 282nd Platoon and were given the task of devising a code using the Navajo language. The members of this unit become known as the Navajo code talkers. The idea for the project was conceived by Philip Johnston, a man who had grown up in a missionary family on the Navajo reservation. When he had served in World War I, Johnston had become aware of an instance when Choctaw Indian soldiers had used their native tongue to confuse the Germans. Johnston was one of a limited number of non-native people fluent in Navajo, and he was convinced that the lack of a standardized Navajo alphabet or other written language materials made this a p
