The World of Yesterday Learing from the past
Murray Thompson
$6.66
Issue #: 420
WWII Navajo Codes Win the War Prior to WWII navajos went to a boarding school and had their names and culture stripped from them. They had come from a reservation where they grew up learning the navajo culture in peace. They never expected what their language would soon be used for. This unique and ancient language ended up being used by marines in WWII as a code to win the war.
Giving up Culture When the navajos went to the boarding school they got their names taken away from them for example Kii YĂĄzhĂ became Ned Begay. At the school he was also forced to learn english because if you spoke any navajo you were punished. He was also forced to give up his clothes for rough military form clothes. These are all examples of him being forced to give up his identity.
Joining The Marines When Ned Begay was 15 someone came to his school and said that navajos are wanted for the marines but only ones that speak english and navajo and he asked his parents but they said wait until he was 16. When he was 16 he claimed that he was old enough to enter the military and he was sent off with other navajos. They trained like other marines but they did not know that they would have to use the navajo language again for a code that the enemy could not decipher. He decided to join the marines because he wanted out of that boarding school and he wanted to be respected.
The Code Shortly after boot camp the navajos went to a special place in california for them to learn the code that the first platoon of navajos created. After they learned the code they have to use it during the battles, the japanese can track where the message was sent and received but they can't decipher it. The reason navajos were wanted was because their language was one of the only languages the japanese didn't understand. The reason the japanese didn't know the navajo language was because the navajos were in a reservation and not many people were allowed in or out.
As a child Ned wanted to learn by going to the boarding school but he didn't want to give up his navajo culture (he didn't even know that he had to). Is is kind of ironic though because the teachers said that they would not get anywhere with the navajo language and then it got used by the US marines as a code that the japanese could not understand helping them win the war.