Code Talker

[Hooks]

Attachment 79969

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

I like that movie. They show a lot of carbine action.

[browningautorifle]

Looks like a Hawley helmet liner he has...

[CINDERS]

The Navajo code talkers were commended for their skill, speed, and accuracy demonstrated throughout the war. At the Battle of Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. These six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error. Connor later stated, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."

As the war progressed, additional code words were added on and incorporated program-wide. In other instances, informal short-cut code words were devised for a particular campaign and not disseminated beyond the area of operation. To ensure a consistent use of code terminologies throughout the Pacific Theater, representative code talkers of each of the U.S. Marine divisions met in Hawaii to discuss shortcomings in the code, incorporate new terms into the system, and update their codebooks. These representatives in turn trained other code talkers who could not attend the meeting. For example, the Navajo word for buzzard, jeeshóóʼ, was used for bomber, while the code word used for submarine, béésh łóóʼ, meant iron fish in Navajo. The last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers who developed the code, Chester Nez, died on June 4, 2014.

The deployment of the Navajo code talkers continued through the Korean War and after, until it was ended early in the Vietnam War. The Navajo code is the only spoken military code never to have been deciphered.

And finally it was not a WWII thing ~ Code talking, however, was pioneered by Cherokee and Choctaw Indians during World War I.

[Live4therut]

Code talkers in the United States have been storied, honored and lauded for their military contributions. But much less known, and barely recognized for their service by the Canadian government, were Cree code talkers from Canada who assisted the Allies in World War II. In Canada, the code talkers were never officially recognized or commended, partly because their work was considered so covert that they were sworn to secrecy even long after the war was over. The program was not declassified until 1963, but even then most did not speak of their work. And now they have entirely died out. Because many military terms didn’t exist in native languages, new terms had to be made up for things like tanks, and machine guns and bombers. A machine gun might be called for example, a “little gun that shoots fast”, while a Mosquito fighter-bomber would use the cree word for mosquito- “sakimes”. Canadian code talkers were never honoured by either the Canadian or US governments. Because the Canadian Cree worked for the US. The Navajo code wasn't the only unbreakable code, just the most known.
I had six great uncles serve and two that were Metis & cree code talkers. I never heard them talk about the their time in the war unless we were on the trap line and they were drunk.