Why were the contributions of the Navajo code talkers unrecognized for many years following the war?

Answer 1

The code was top secret until 1968. The former code talkers were not allowed to tell anyone what they did. Most returned to the Navajo Nation and many became prominent tribal members. They were treated the same as all other Native Vets. Many were active in working towards getting the right to vote in Arizona. In 1982 the code talkers were honored and later they all got Congressional gold medals in 2001.

One place on the Navajo Nation to see information about the code talkers is at the Burger King in Kayenta, Arizona. The owner's father, King Mike, was a code talker and he has a small museum there. It has probably the best collection in the country. He did know what his father did until he found a postcard photo of Okinawa.

Answer 2

The code was a classified top secret until it was declassified in 1968. They were not even supposed to tell their families. It was used in the Korean War and early Vietnam War. After it was discontinued it was declassified and they could tell people about it. The first official honors were 14 years later in 1982. More honors were given in 2000 and 2008.

Answer 3

It was classified as top secret until 1968. As well trained Marines they did not break the law of their vows. Even their own families often didn't know what they had done. When it was declassified, then they could talk about it. s of people, the remote location and culture of the people involved and the history that had already been written which didn't know how important it had been all worked to slow down recognition. It took some time for that to make it into history books and popular awareness. The small number 14 years later August 14 was declared Code Talkers. In 2000 Clinton signed a law giving the original 29 Code talkers the Congressional Gold Medal and the Congressional silver Medal to the 300 who qualified as Code Talkers.

Answer 4

Other languages have been used to do this as well. Anytime one does not know an other language that is completely unrelated to yours it is very hard to decipher it. Welsh, Nubian, Choctaw, Cherokee and others have been used.

It was also put into a simple alphabet code so Navajo speakers who were not trained would not understand it. They rotated this code randomly.

Navajo was a good choice for a few reasons.

1) The sounds in Navajo are fairly unsual and hard for a Japanese speakers to understand, hear, write down or produce. This means it would have been very hard for a non-native to produce sounds that would fool a native speaker over a open radio. It also was hard to even write down what sounds they were hearing in order to break the code. Navajo has nasalized vowels, glottal consonants, an aspirated L, tones and other features that do not exist in Japanese or in English.

2) There were about 50-60 thousand speakers in the US and none in other countries. So they had enough to pick from to train and no one could help the Japanese cryptographers.

3) There were no internationally published descriptions dictionaries or of Navajo at that time.

4) Almost non-Navajos spoke the language at the time.

4) Because the code was simple native speakers could learn and memorize it quickly. They could also use it quickly without machines or writing anything down that could be captured. The machines at the time took 1/2hr to one hour to do one message. Navajo code talkers on open radios could do a message in a minute or two.

Outside of the language, the Navajo spoken code was not very complex by cryptographic standards. It would have been broken if a native speaker and trained cryptographers could have worked together effectively.

The Japanese captured Joe Kieyoomia in the Philippines in 1942 during the Bataan Death March. Kieyoomia, a Navajo sergeant in the U.S. Army, but not a code talker, was ordered to interpret the radio messages later in the war. Kieyoomia had not been code trained, so the messages made no sense to him. When he told that them he could not understand the messages. They then tortured him. By doing this they lost all chance of breaking the code. They would have needed him to work closely with cryptographers not say anything under torture. The Japanese Imperial Army and Navy never cracked the spoken code.