Code Talker

by Chester Nez

“Damn!” The instructor pored over our score sheets. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He shook his head. “Where’d you guys learn to shoot?”

  We felt pretty comfortable on the rifle range and with our pistols, and Platoon 382 earned one of the highest scores in marksmanship of any Marine platoon in history. We graduated with one expert, fourteen sharpshooters, and twelve marksmen in our ranks. That got us another write-up in the Marine Corps Chevron. I was qualified as a pistol sharpshooter.

  Eventually, my fellow recruits and I could handle handguns, 30-30 lever-action guns, and hand grenades without fear. The weapons still inspired a sense of awe and danger, but we knew how to use them safely. Hand-to-hand combat practice with bayonets resulted in some bruises, but added to our self-assurance.

  Grenades were especially heavy and cumbersome. We graduated from dud grenades to live ones, and I felt my throat tighten when I pulled the pin. Just as they’d taught us, I held the trigger in until I was ready to throw. Chest-high trenches protected us from the explosions. I threw from one deep trench into another—my arm muscles as taut as a stretched rubber band.

  The supervising instructor nodded. “Good.”

  I scrambled from the trench, and the next recruit took his turn.

  Survival training was also quite intense. We’d march for miles across the desert, with limited amounts of food and water. Often we spent the night out in the open, staying in improvised shelters. It was like herding sheep all over again.

  The fieldwork was pretty demanding, but there was classroom work, too. We learned about the various weapons in detail. By the end of training, each of us could disassemble and reassemble his rifle while blindfolded, meeting or beating a specified time limit.

  We all attended communications school, learning Morse code and semaphore, which utilized flags. We also learned to fix radios and to take them apart. At the time this seemed to be just one more required skill. We were not told what a large part these radios would play in our future in the South Pacific.

  There were plenty of women in the Marines. They didn’t go into combat back then, but we often saw women in the motor pool, women who trained as nurses, women who handled the food service. Although I never met any of them, they were a constant reminder of why we men were preparing to fight.

  When we completed our seven weeks of basic, Platoon 382 stood final inspection. It was June 27, 1942. Colonel James L. Underhill, base commanding officer, addressed the troops. He gave us Navajo men high praise, and was quoted in the Marine Corps Chevron the following week:

  This platoon is the first truly All-American platoon to pass through this Recruit Depot. It is, in fact, the first All-American platoon to enter the United States Marine Corps. We have had individual members of the Indian nations in the Corps, but never before a group like this one . . .

  Yours has been one of the outstanding platoons in the history of this Recruit Depot and a letter has gone to Washington telling of your excellence. You obey orders like seasoned and disciplined soldiers. You have maintained rugged health. You have been anxiouus [sic] to learn your new duties, and you have learned quickly. As a group you have made one of the highest scores on the Rifle Range.

  The Marine Corps is proud to have you in its ranks, and I am proud to have been the Commanding Officer of the Base while you were here.

  You are now to be transferred to a combat organization where you will receive further training. When the time comes that you go to battle with the enemy, I know that you will fight like true Navajos, Americans and Marines.27

  The article also carried pictures of Platoon 382. And one headline tried to give all of us swelled heads:

  FAMED PLATOON OF NAVAJO INDIANS

  FINISH RECRUIT TRAINING.

  The intense training had built up our confidence. By the end of basic training, I felt satisfied that I had learned everything I needed to know to stay alive in combat.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Unbreakable Code

  July to September 1942

  Platoon 382, all twenty-nine of us, eagerly anticipated a ten-day leave. After they completed basic training, our white Marine buddies took off to see their families. But an officer pulled us Navajos aside, explaining that our mission was very critical. The men of Platoon 382 could not be spared for ten days.

  While those other Marine recruits sat around dining tables with sisters, brothers, and parents, I sat in the barracks trying to compose a letter. I pictured Grandmother, Father, and Grandfather at home on the Checkerboard, enjoying the sunny, warm days of summer. My family thought I was still living at the school in Tuba City. I wasn’t sure how to tell them that I had joined the Marines or that I was going to war. Finally I just wrote the facts flat out and sealed the envelope.

  It was our second day at Camp Elliott, near San Diego, our home for the next thirteen weeks. Riding out there on the bus, we had speculated about our “critical mission.”

  A Marine officer strode with a no-nonsense gait to a classroom building, and we followed. He opened the locked door and marched to the front of the room as we piled in behind him. Standing tall, his uniform spotless, his expression unsmiling, he waited for us to sit. Then he spoke. I felt a small knot tighten in my stomach.

  The officer wasted no time. He looked around the room at each of us, the twenty-nine carefully selected Marine recruits, and told us we were to use our native language to devise an unbreakable code. I read expressions of shock on every face. A code based on the Navajo language? After we’d been so severely punished in boarding school for speaking it?

  For starters, you’ll need a word for each letter of the alphabet, the officer told us.

  The officer locked the door as he left, telling us we’d be released at the end of the day to get dinner. Someone would bring lunch to the room. Other than that, we were on our own, forbidden to speak to anyone outside that room about our task. And if we needed to go anywhere, we had to go in pairs. We were to practice the buddy system at all times. Anyone caught alone would be punished.

  Hearing that door lock click closed, I again felt my stomach tense. The windows of our classroom were protected by security bars. Now what?

  After some discussion, we began to see the wisdom in our assignment. Navajo was a very complex language. And, since it was not written,28 the Japanese could learn it only from a Navajo or from one of the rare non-Navajos who had lived on the reservation and learned to speak the language. To be honest, I don’t think they could have learned the language even then. It was just too complicated.

  Still, apprehension set in. How could we, twenty-eight of whom had never worked with the military, develop a code robust enough to be used in battle? One that could be responsible for sending life-or-death mes-sages? The task loomed ahead like a black unmapped cavern. Where to begin?

  We stared at the locked door of the room in which we sat. One of our men, Gene Crawford, had been in the reserves. He had worked with codes before, and he offered to share his knowledge with all of us. There were certain things that were important. The code words chosen must be clear when spoken on the radio. Each word must be distinct from other words chosen, in order to avoid confusion. The officer who’d locked the room was correct: a good way to begin was to select a word to represent each letter of the alphabet.

  Gene Crawford and two other men from among the twenty-nine, John Benally and John Manuelito, played a strong part in setting the direction for our group as we developed the new code.

  On that first day, we decided to use an English word—generally an animal, a plant, or an object that was part of our everyday world—to represent each letter of the English alphabet. Those words would then be translated into Navajo, and the Navajo word would represent the English letter. As Gene had suggested, we chose Navajo words that could be easily distinguished on the radio, words differing clearly in sound from other selected words. A became “red ant,” not the English word for ant, but the Navajo word, pronounced wol-la-chee. B became “bear,” pronounced shush in Nav
ajo. C was “cat” or moasi. D was “deer” or be. Thus a double encryption was used. Each letter became an English word beginning with that letter, and the English word was translated into a Navajo word.

  We tried to make the letter equivalents easy to remember. And we discussed pronunciation—since emphasis on the wrong syllable, a slight change in tone, or a glottal stop could totally change a word’s meaning in the complicated Navajo language. Any differences in dialects between us men had to be resolved into one firm code. In the heat of battle we could afford no ambiguities.

  Although Navajo is spoken less and less frequently today, the boarding schools in the 1920s and ’30s had—happily—failed in their efforts to erase the language from the minds of their students. We men in that locked room were articulate in both Navajo and English.

  Navajo bears little resemblance to English. When a Navajo asks whether you speak his language, he uses these words: “Do you hear Navajo?” Words must be heard before they can be spoken. Many of the sounds in Navajo are impossible for the unpracticed ear to distinguish. The inability of most people to hear Navajo was a solid plus when it came to devising our code.

  The Navajo language is very exact, with fine shades of meaning that are missing in English. Our language illustrates the Diné’s relationship to nature. Everything that happens in our lives happens in relationship to the world that surrounds us. The language reflects the importance of how we and various objects interact. For example, the form of the verb “to dump something” that is used depends upon the object that is being dumped and the container that is being utilized. If one dumps coal from a bucket, for instance, the verb is different from the verb used to describe dumping water from a pail. And the verb again differs when one dumps something from a sack. Again, in Navajo you do not simply “pick up” an object. Depending on what the object is—its consistency and its shape—the verb used for “to pick up” will differ. Thus the verb for picking up a handful of squishy mud differs from the verb used for picking up a stick.

  Pronunciation, too, is complex. Navajo is a tonal language with four tones: high, low, rising, and falling. The tone used can completely change the meaning of a word. The words for “medicine” and “mouth” are pronounced in the same way, but they are differentiated by tone.29 Glottal and aspirated stops are also employed. Given these complexities, native speakers of any other language are generally unable to properly pronounce most Navajo words.

  But the complexities of the Navajo language provide a wonderful tool for spinning tales. Our speech does not simply state facts; it paints pictures. Spoken in Navajo, the phrase “I am hungry” becomes “Hunger is hurting me.”30

  The conjugation of verbs in Navajo is also complex. There is a verb form for one person performing an action, a different form of the verb for two people, and a third form for more than two people.

  English can be spoken sloppily and still be understood. Not so with the Navajo language. So, even though our assigned task—developing a code—made us nervous, we realized that we brought the right skills to the job.

  Several white Marines who’d grown up on the Navajo Reservation and knew quite a bit of Navajo later applied to code talker school. But there were always words or syllables they could not pronounce correctly, so they didn’t make it as code talkers.

  There was no dissension among us in that locked room. We focused. We worked as one. This was a talent long employed in Navajo culture—many working together to herd the sheep, plant the corn, bring in a harvest. When we were children, distant relatives visited for weeks at a time, strengthening the bond of family. Neighbors cared for one another’s livestock when someone was sick or had to travel, knowing their friend would someday do the same for them. The ability to live in unity, learned on the reservation and the Checkerboard, proved invaluable to our current assignment.

  Day one ended, and the fledgling new code had already begun to take shape. We twenty-nine Marines had come up with a workable structure. When I looked around, relief showed on every face. We slapped each other on the back, and joked to let off steam, feeling good about our work. The impossible-seeming task suddenly looked possible. We would not let our country or our fellow Marines down.

  An officer arrived to unlock the room. He collected the working papers we’d generated that day and locked them in a safe. Hearing that safe slam shut, I was again impressed by the seriousness of our mission.

  It was Saturday, three-thirty in the afternoon, after a long week of code work. Roy Begay sat on his bunk in the barracks, his blanket pulled tight like a drum, military style. He grinned at me as I sprawled on the adjacent bunk.

  “Spell ‘beer,’” Roy said.

  I chuckled, “Shush dzeh dzeh gah.”

  “Good,” said Roy. A smile lit up his face. “Let’s find the other guys and get some shush dzeh dzeh gah. Now.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the cot. “Ouu,” I said.

  I liked how things were “wide open.” The other code talkers and I were generally released from our work in late afternoon, around four or five o’clock. And on weekends we were free. Not tied to duties like sheepherding, we spent our leisure time exploring San Diego. I was happy about being in the Marines, being in San Diego, and having a secret mission. I felt as though I’d stepped up out of my old life into a new, exciting world.

  Everyone in San Diego asked us questions. About being Indian. About being Marines. After a few beers, it was easy to converse with people who were so different from us, and visiting bars became a popular pastime. Many of my Navajo Marine buddies had never tried beer, or any alcohol, before. I had, and I didn’t much like the taste, but did like the way it warmed my insides, relaxing me.

  We often wound up at a favorite watering hole, a sort of enlisted men’s club on base we called “The Slop Chute.” There they served food in addition to alcohol, so we could have a meal and a drink or two without getting sloppy.

  When we left base and ventured into San Diego, we arrived at bars wearing our Marine uniforms and were served with no questions asked. But many Navajos worked in San Diego’s factories. When Native Americans arrived out of uniform, they were told that Indians would not be served alcohol. The popular idea was that a drunk Indian was a bad Indian. That was just the way it was. We all accepted it.

  Tijuana, Mexico, just across the border from San Diego, was another popular destination. One bar at the border had a white line drawn on the floor. On one side of the line was the USA, on the other Mexico.

  Mexico was wilder, and behavior there was less restrained than in the United States. Military men returning from Mexico were assumed to have gotten into trouble. Often medical checkups, performed by the military, were required at the border.

  Military Police watched over us Marines in San Diego as we drank, and anyone who appeared inebriated was sent to the barracks. On weekends, my group had to be back at barracks by early evening, around seven-thirty. We took our new job seriously and always returned on time. We never got so drunk that we had to be brought to the base by other Marines.

  Even though we were watched by our fellow military men, the sense of freedom, of having days off, was like a rebirth for me. On the Checkerboard there was always work to be done, never a day off. Now we were unencumbered by the duties and obligations to family that had filled our hours at home. In San Diego, we discovered thousands of lights, noisy crowds of people, endless blocks of buildings, thousands of vehicles, and the ocean.

  Most of the men had never seen the ocean before. Normally an event as big as seeing the ocean for the first time required a blessing. An even more serious blessing was needed before swimming in the ocean. The blessings helped us to maintain a balance with nature. But things in the military were different, and we just came upon the ocean all of a sudden during basic training. We all practiced jumping into the water and running on the beach. Landing in the South Pacific, in combat, would mean swimming and wading through the water. We had to be ready.

  Every night we q
uizzed each other on the code. As part of our task, we devised phonetic English spellings for the previously unwritten Navajo words. This was all top secret, as was the rest of the code. The new phonetic spellings allowed us to review and study the Navajo words that became part of the new code, words that needed to flow like water in the midst of battle. It was impossible to study too much.

  We practiced writing. We decided that everything should be printed, no script. Each word had to be legible, and most of us wrote in upper case, each man’s letters the same as all the others. I still print today, out of long-ingrained habit.

  It took about five days for us to devise Navajo word equivalents for the full alphabet. The code pleased all of us with its unique words and the ease with which it could be memorized. The most difficult letters were J and Z. We finally settled on “jackass,” code word tkele-cho-gi, and “zinc,” code word besh-do-tliz.

  We quizzed each other, spelling messages until we knew the Navajoword equivalents for the English alphabet without a flaw. If someone had trouble with the memorizing, we all quizzed him until he got it. We knew that the strength of the group made us all sharp. And in combat, the code would only be as strong as both men using it—the one on the sending end and the one on the receiving end.

  Despite the efforts of boarding schools to repress it, Navajo oral tradition remained strong. Stories were still told around the campfires at home, memorized, and told again . . . and again. Memorization, for each of us, was second nature.

  And, again despite the efforts of boarding schools, from the time of their birth, Navajo children in a traditional environment were exposed to the exacting and complex thought processes required by the Navajo language. This helped contribute to their ability to deal with decisions and complexities in their lives. Certainly it contributed to the abilities required to be a code talker: learning quickly, memorizing, and working under extreme pressure. I am thankful that my father and grandparents taught me my Navajo language well.