Philip Johnston was the son of a missionary, William Johnston, who brought his family to Flagstaff, Arizona on September 18, 1896 to proselytize to Navajos residing on the eastern part of the Navajo reservation. Young Philip was the Navajo/English translator between the local Navajo leaders and President Roosevelt.
Mr. Johnston lived among the Navajos for 24 years. He believed that use by the Marine Corps of Navajo as a code language in voice (radio and wire) transmission could guarantee communication security. His rationale for this belief was that Navajo was an unwritten language and completely unintelligible to anyone except another Navajo, and that it is a rich fluent language for which code words, in Navajo, could be devised for specialized military terms, such as the Navajo word for “turtle” representing a tank.
Philip presented a demonstration of his theory to General Vogel and his staff at Camp Elliot on February 25, 1942. Marine staff officers composed pretend field messages, where were handed to a Navajo, who then translated it into tribal dialect and transmitted it to another Navajo on the other side of the line. It was translated perfectly the way it had been originally provided. The demonstration proved entirely successful. As a result, 200 Navajos were recruited into the Marine Corps.
Recruitment began in May 1942. Each Navajo underwent basic boot camp training at San Diego. At Camp Pendleton, training of basic communications, procedure and equipment began. 29 Navajos devised Navajo words for military terms which were not part of their language. Alternate terms were provided in the code for letter frequently repeated in the English Language. All code talkers had to memorize both the primary and alternate code terms.
The Code Talkers primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movement, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed general Marine duties.
The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief on intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines.
Once the training was completed in the States, the Navajos were sent to the Pacific for assignment to the Marine combat divisions. Navajos were performing to a high degree through the war.
The first group of Navajo Code Talkers arrived in Guadalcanal on September 18, 1942. The second group arrived on January 4, 1943.
The name Code Talkers is associated with bilingual Navajo Speakers recruited for WWII.
More than 400 Code Talkers fought in some of the bloodiest battles of WWII.
The Code Talkers were warned not to tell anyone what they did during the war.
Congress declared August 14, 1982 as National Code Talkers Day