Last of original Navajo Code Talkers dies
Chester Nez, the last
of the original 29 Navajo
Code Talkers who created the first unbreakable code that
baffled the Japanese during World War II, died Wednesday at age 93.
 |
| Chester Nez |
The military attempted to use various languages and dialects as code, but each was quickly cracked by cryptographers in Tokyo.
Philip Johnston, a
former Army engineer and the son of Presbyterian missionaries who had lived on
the Navajo reservation, proposed using the Navajo language.
The 29 men selected became the all-Navajo 382nd Marine Platoon.
They used the first letter of the American version of a Navajo word, often of animals, to send the message in code. The Japanese, who would have had to figure out what the Navajo word meant and then what the American word for that is to get the correct letter, never cracked the Navajo code.
They used the first letter of the American version of a Navajo word, often of animals, to send the message in code. The Japanese, who would have had to figure out what the Navajo word meant and then what the American word for that is to get the correct letter, never cracked the Navajo code.
To read the two articles, click on
No comments:
Post a Comment