In 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps recruited 29 Navajo men, now known as “The First Twenty-Nine” to develop a secret code based on their native language.
Navajo was chosen because it had no written form at the time, used complex grammar and tones, and was spoken fluently by very few non-Navajo people (fewer than 30 worldwide). The recruits created an encrypted vocabulary by assigning Navajo words to military terms, for example, “iron fish” meant submarine, “turtle” meant tank, and “chicken hawk” meant dive bomber.
Unlike mechanical encryption systems, the Navajo code could be transmitted and deciphered instantly by trained speakers. During battles like Iwo Jima, six Navajo code talkers sent over 800 flawless messages in just two days. The Japanese intercepted many of these communications but never managed to decode a single one.
The program stayed secret until 1968, and in 2000, the original 29 code talkers were awarded Congressional Gold Medals for their service. The Navajo code remains the only spoken military code in modern history that was never broken.
GilbertGuy2 on
Forgive me if il mistaken, but did the axis Crack enigma?
Like, they had it, but did they have a device to read it from someone else?
3 Comments
In 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps recruited 29 Navajo men, now known as “The First Twenty-Nine” to develop a secret code based on their native language.
Navajo was chosen because it had no written form at the time, used complex grammar and tones, and was spoken fluently by very few non-Navajo people (fewer than 30 worldwide). The recruits created an encrypted vocabulary by assigning Navajo words to military terms, for example, “iron fish” meant submarine, “turtle” meant tank, and “chicken hawk” meant dive bomber.
Unlike mechanical encryption systems, the Navajo code could be transmitted and deciphered instantly by trained speakers. During battles like Iwo Jima, six Navajo code talkers sent over 800 flawless messages in just two days. The Japanese intercepted many of these communications but never managed to decode a single one.
The program stayed secret until 1968, and in 2000, the original 29 code talkers were awarded Congressional Gold Medals for their service. The Navajo code remains the only spoken military code in modern history that was never broken.
Forgive me if il mistaken, but did the axis Crack enigma?
Like, they had it, but did they have a device to read it from someone else?
“Ayo this man underwater or something.”
IJN Codebreaker when Navajo