The Navajo Code Talkers in World War 2

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2022

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In World War 2, US Marines fighting in the Pacific needed to be able to communicate securely on the battlefield. Early in the war, the Japanese had been able to decode some of their encrypted messages. So the Marines turned to members of the Navajo tribe. An unbreakable code based on the Navajo language was quickly developed. And the Navajo Code Talkers went on to participate in all the major Marine operations in the Pacific, helping the Allies to victory. Rob Walker has been listening back to the story of one of the Code Talkers, Samuel Tso, and also speaking to Laura Tohe who is the daughter of a Code Talker and who has written a book about them, ‘Code Talker Stories’. The interview with Samuel Tso was reproduced with the kind permission of George Colburn. Details of his documentary about the Code Talkers can be found here: https://www.thenavajocodetalkers.com/

The full interview with Samuel Tso is available on C-SPAN, along with interviews with other Code Talkers: https://www.c-span.org/video/?459728-1/navajo-code-talker-samuel-tso-oral-history-interview

Photo: 'Code Talker' U.S. Marines George H. Kirk (left) of Ganado, Arizona and John V. Goodluck (right) of Lukachukai, Arizona, both of the Navajo Nation, are photographed before their shelter on a hillside following the American victory of the Battle of Guam, September 1944. (Photo by: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello there. Thanks for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:39.1	I'm Rob Walker. Today we're going back to World War II and the remarkable story of the Navajo Code Talkers,
0:45.8	Native Americans from the Navajo tribe who served with the U.S. Marines and communicated
0:50.8	in a secret and unbreakable code.
0:54.0	The beach that we're going to land on now looks to be very hot from here.
0:58.0	The land just beyond the water seems to be a flame.
1:02.0	In February 1945 American troops landed on Iwo Jima.
1:07.0	More than 20,000 Japanese soldiers were dug in defending the island, including on Mount Surabachi towering over the southern part of
1:14.4	Ewegima. It was to become one of the bloodiest battles of the war in the Pacific, and the
1:19.6	co-talkers who'd already proved themselves invaluable in previous operations were to play a key role.
1:25.0	Early in the morning, we saw Mount Surabotchry right there, looming up, and I thought it's only a little island we just overrun that thing
1:36.6	look at all these ships coming in people so Marines in there we'll just run over that little island and go on home.
1:46.0	And I was wrong.
1:47.6	Samuel Soe was one of the Navajo co-talkers.
1:50.3	He was 22 years old when he landed with the US Marines on Iwo Jima.
	...

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