Navajo Code Talkers [Tylee Pugmire]

Fourteen Comanche code talkers took part in the Invasion of Normandy, and continued to serve in the 4th infantry division during further Europian operations

It all started when a man named Philip Johnston preposed the use of the Navajo in World War 2 to the United States Marine Corps. The idea was very soon accepted by everyone and then the Navajo code was formally developed and modeled on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet that uses agreed upon enlish words to form sentances that mean something different than they appear. Before Johnston came into the picture they were planning on actually spelling out every letter of each military term to each other, but they figure that the idea might be too time consuming. They later changed the code because the terms had to fit the standard use for war.

The code was then used during World War 2, the Korean war, and ended before Veitnam. This code was one of the hardest to crack. Even the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy never cracked the spoken code, and high ranking military officers would've never one the Battle of Iwo Jima without the secrecy offered by the code talkers.

When Adolf Hitler found out about the sucessful use of code talkers during world war 1 he sent a team of 30 anthropologists to learn the native american laguages before the outbreak of world war 2. However it proved to be difficult to learn all the many laguages and dialects that existed at that time. Because the Nazi german antheropologists' attempted to learn the languages, the U.S. army didnt implement a vary large scale code talker program in the Europian Theater. The comanches used over 100 code terms that were phrased in their own language. For example the code word for tank was "turtle," and a bomber was "pregnant airplane," and the machine gun was "sewing machine," Hitler later became "the crazy white man."

Two code talkers were assigned to each unit, or regiment, and the rest to the 4th infantry division headquarters. Shortly after they had landed on the Utah beach on June 6,1944.



The Congressional Gold Metal

(2001)







The code talkers recieved no recognition for there work until after the declassification of the operation in1968. Then later in 1982 the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by president Rhonald Reagan, who also named August 14, Navajo code talker day. Later Bill Clinton awarded the Congressional Gold Metal to twenty-nine code talkers. Also in July of 2001 president Bush personally awarded the metal to 4 surviving code talkers. Then a movie in 2002 was released about the Navajo Code Talkers.

Summary: The Navajo indians did alot for our country. They gave us a shot at winning WW2. They provided a whole language that was used to bring this counry peacce. They will always be remembered for all the work they've done.


Quiz Questions:

1. What was Hitler called by the Code Talkers during World War 2?
   
2. What was the award that president Rhonald Reagan gave the Code Talkers after the war?
3. What did Bill Clinton give them?
4. How many anthropologists did Hitler use to try and uncover the code?
5. What was the word for Tank?
6. The code talkers used over 100 terms during the war True or False?
7. The code talkers were sent over a million dollars and a card from president Bush True or False?
8. Did they have to modify the language before using it in the war? Answer yes or no.
9. What was a bomber called?
10. How many code talkers were assigned to each unit?