Episode 250: The Code Talkers, Part IV: Navajo, Not Japanese
AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

Episode 250: The Code Talkers, Part IV: Navajo, Not Japanese

B2Upper-intermediateMarch 16, 202633 min

For the Marine Corps, the nightmare scenario was a Navajo code talker falling into the hands of the enemy. However, for the code talkers themselves, an equally grim prospect was being mistaken for the enemy by their fellow Marines.

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out on the battlefield, and, based on his family's responses, it was a similar time frame

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0:00

The Chesterness, as that letters from home, regularly took about eight months to reach him out on the battlefield, and, based on his family's responses, it was a similar time frame for his letters to reach them. For now, for home-end like Ness, and I'm sure for other Amor Indian serving in the Armed Forces

0:29

during World War II, these letters also represented an additional step for their families. Nes and his generation had gone to the boarding schools where they had been literally forced to learn how to speak and write English, but their parents and other relatives still only spoke the unwritten Navajo language. So just a send a letter to their son serving in the army,

0:54

navy or marines, these Navajo Elders had to find someone who could write the letter in English for them. And then especially for Ness and his group, their mail was open beforehand and heavily censored, both what they received and what they sent. He remembers a time he received a letter on and Pelaloo, and open it only to find that there were only a few readable lines.

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