In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp to learn military skills. Afterward, they were sent to training camp at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Calif. It was there they created the unbreakable Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms that previously had no Navajo equivalent. They assigned their own expressions, like iron-fish to mean submarine, for over 400 important military terms.
Each term had to be memorized during training, so the enemy couldn’t capture any written material to crack the code.
Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers’ primary job was to transmit information on tactics, troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers and performed general Marine duties.

Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. Navajo code talkers worked around the clock during the first two days of World War II. The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language to the very end.
The Navajo code talkers even baffled a Navajo soldier taken prisoner at Bataan (About 20 Navajos served in the Army in the Philippines).

Joe Kieyoomia, a Navajo who wasn’t trained as a Code Talker, survived the Bataan Death March only to be tortured into trying to decode intercepted Marine communications. Left standing naked in the snow with his feet frozen to the parade ground, he couldn’t confess to what he didn’t understand. The secret code made no sense, even to other Navajos.

In 1942, there were about 50,000 Navajo tribe members. As of 1945, about 540 Navajos served as Marines. More than 375 Navajos were trained as code talkers and the rest served in other capacities. At the end of World War II, the Japanese cracked every code that the Army and Navy came up with - but not the Navajo code.
Native American Month celebrates and acknowledges all contributions Native Americans have made to United States history. The Navajo Code Talkers are representative of extraordinary acts that ordinary Americans make everyday protecting America in the line of duty.