Navajo Code Talkers and Their Story From World War II

Many people know the Navajo Code Talkers from a film or a museum plaque, but the full story is rarely told. It usually skips the part where the same government that relied on the Navajo language in war had spent decades trying to beat it out of Navajo children. This history of the Navajo Code Talkers covers how the code worked, what the men accomplished, and why their recognition took more than half a century.

I have spent years reading oral histories from Navajo veterans and their families. What stands out is not only the courage under fire, but the quiet irony they carried home.

How the Navajo Code Talkers program began

In early 1942, weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States military had a serious problem in the Pacific. Japanese intelligence officers were skilled at breaking codes, and many had studied English. Coded messages could take hours to encrypt and decrypt with machines, which was far too slow in the middle of a battle.

Philip Johnston, a civil engineer who had grown up on the Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary, suggested using the Navajo language. It was unwritten at the time, extremely complex in grammar and tone, and spoken by very few people outside the Navajo Nation. After a demonstration in early 1942, the Marine Corps approved a pilot program.

In May 1942, 29 young Navajo men were sworn in as Marines. They are remembered today as the Original 29. Some were barely out of their teens, and a few had lied about their age to enlist.

How the code actually worked

The Original 29 did not simply speak Navajo over the radio. They built a code on top of the language, which meant that even a fluent Navajo speaker who had not trained with them would struggle to understand the messages.

An alphabet. Each English letter was matched to a Navajo word for an animal or object. Words could be spelled out letter by letter when needed, and later versions added several Navajo words for common letters to make patterns harder to spot.
Military terms. The first version had more than 200 terms, and it grew to several hundred during the war. Many came from nature. A submarine was an "iron fish," a tank was a "tortoise," and a dive bomber was a "chicken hawk."
Memorization. Nothing was written down in the field. Code talkers memorized the entire system and practiced until they could transmit and translate at speed.

The result was fast and secure. In tests, code talkers sent a three line message in about 20 seconds, a task that coding machines of the time could take up to 30 minutes to complete.

From Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima

Navajo code talkers served in all six Marine divisions in the Pacific, at battles including Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In total, roughly 400 Navajo men served as code talkers during the war.

Their work at Iwo Jima in February 1945 is the most often cited. Major Howard Connor, a signal officer with the 5th Marine Division, later said that six code talkers worked around the clock during the first two days of the battle, sending and receiving more than 800 messages without an error. He stated that without the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.

The danger was real. Code talkers carried heavy radios through combat, often near the front, and some were mistaken for Japanese soldiers by other American troops. Several were assigned bodyguards, partly to protect them and, according to some accounts, partly to protect the code if they were about to be captured.

Why the story is more than a war story

Popular accounts often present the code talkers as a simple tale of patriotic heroism. That is true as far as it goes, but I think it leaves out the most important context. Many of these men had attended federal or mission boarding schools where speaking Navajo was forbidden. Children were punished for it, sometimes by having their mouths washed out with soap.

The language that the military valued so highly in 1942 was the same language the government had spent decades trying to erase. Our longer piece on the Indian boarding school legacy explains how those schools operated and why their effects still shape Native communities today.

The code talkers also came home to a country that did not treat them as equals. In Arizona and New Mexico, many Native Americans were still blocked from voting until court rulings in 1948. The fight over that right did not end there either, as our article on Native American voting rights shows.

Secrecy and late recognition

When the war ended, the code talkers were ordered not to speak about their work. The code remained classified because the military thought it might be used again. Many veterans could not tell even their families what they had done.

The program was declassified in 1968. Public recognition followed slowly over the next few decades.

1982: President Ronald Reagan declared August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day.
2001: The Original 29 were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, with most medals received by family members because only a handful of the men were still alive. Later code talkers received the Congressional Silver Medal that year.
2008: The Code Talkers Recognition Act honored code talkers from other tribes, including Choctaw soldiers who used their language in World War I and Comanche soldiers who served in Europe in World War II.
2013: Medals were presented to representatives of more than 30 tribes whose members served as code talkers.

Chester Nez, the last surviving member of the Original 29, died in 2014. His memoir and the recorded testimony of other veterans remain some of the best first hand sources available.

How families keep the history alive

Today, families of code talkers lead school visits, parades and Navajo Code Talkers Day events each August. Many also stress that preserving the Navajo language is the best way to honor the men. Language programs across the Navajo Nation teach children the words their grandparents were once punished for speaking.

For more on the wider history of Native nations in the United States, browse our history articles.

Frequently asked questions

How many Navajo Code Talkers were there?

The program began with 29 Navajo Marines in 1942, and roughly 400 Navajo men served as code talkers by the end of World War II. They served in all six Marine divisions in the Pacific. Exact figures vary slightly between sources because some records remained classified for years.

Why was the Navajo code never broken?

The code was built on a complex, unwritten language that very few outsiders spoke. On top of that, it used coded words for letters and military terms, so even fluent Navajo speakers without training could not easily follow it. The code was also memorized rather than written, leaving nothing for an enemy to capture.

When were the Navajo Code Talkers recognized?

Their work stayed classified until 1968. A national day of recognition followed in 1982, and the Original 29 received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001. Many of the men had died before they were publicly honored.