John L. Whiteman

Appearance

The Navajo Codebook ​


Background ​

The movie Windtalkers is a true story about Navajo code talkers who served in the US Marine Corps during World War 2. Code talkers spoke in their native tongue to communicate secret encoded messages during battle.

Many other Native American nations participated, such as the Cree, Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Crow, Comanche, Fox, Dakota, Hopi, Kiowa, Lakota, Menominee, Meskwaki, Mohawk, Oneida, Pawnee, Sac, Seminole, Tlingit, and Winnebago.

The movie's main plot centers around the Marines assigning a bodyguard for each code talker. If the code talker was in danger of being captured by the enemy, the bodyguard had orders to kill the code talker to prevent capture. Whether this is true or not, a more human-friendly resolution is kindly updating the codebook.

Using code talkers and codebooks in the US did not start in World War 2. Cherokee, Cheyenne, Comanche, Osage, and Sioux soldiers successfully did the same thing during World War 1. The Germans broke every American code before the code talkers arrived.

Why were Native Americans chosen for this role?

Historically, many indigenous peoples in North America didn't have a writing system, which makes it difficult to crack the code. On top of that, many of the encoded words created never existed in the native language.