This code helped win the war in the Pacific and saved many lives.
Until this code was used, the enemy had cracked every American code, causing strategic disadvantage.
The Navajo language was extremely unique and unwritten, and was used by a geographically isolated population. It was perfect as a military code.
US Marines of Navajo descent were tapped to form a special team, which developed a encrypted code based upon their native language. The code developed was quite clever in that even other Navajos could not decipher the code.
In the pilot program military leaders were stunned to see how fast the team could transmit, decode, and receive messages under front line combat conditions. No other American coders were as fast or accurate. Code that normally took hours, the Navajo team could transmit in minutes with no mistakes.
These men were very brave and worked on front lines delivering critical information, risking their lives. After the war, the military brass told them everything they did was top secret and could never be discussed as the code was so special the military wanted to keep it secret to be used in future wars.
In 1968 the project was declassified and the Code Talkers began to receive public recognition, richly deserved.
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