navajo+code+breakers

Ashley Agerter, Aubrey Langley, Joe Kaye.

NAVAJO CODE READERS The Navajo Code Readers are Native American Navajos that assisted the American and Allied troops in World War 2. This made it easy for the American and Allied troops to communicate without the Axis troops being able to decode their messages even if they had intercepted the messages. The Navajo Code Readers were extremely important during the battle of Iwo Jima. The Navajo helped the American and Allied powers by allowing them to use and understand most of their Native language and by creating an dictonary system based on the letters of the alphabet. The letter of the alphabet they were using would be present in the word. Their were about 29 code readers all together during the war. Keith Lattle was a Navajo Code Reader during World War 2 and he is still living today, now as the president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association (NCTA). He was apart of most the battle the Navajo Code talkers hepled the American and Allied troops accomplish. The Navajo Code Readers eventually became known as members of the U.S Marine Corps.



It is believed that if it were not for the Navajos that the Marines would hav never taken over Iwo Jima. At the begining of the war less than 50 people outside the Navajo community could understand the Navajo language. During the first two days of fighting in Iwo Jime the Navajos encrypted and decrypted over 800 messages without and errors. In 2001 the Navajo Code Readers were each awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.



The Navajo Code Talkers were young Navajo men that transmitted secret communications during WWII. They were able to create the most successful code in military history when all other codes fell short. The code was unbreakable and essential from 1942 all the way through 1945 in the Pacific Theater. One of these code talkers was Keith Little.

Keith Little grew up on a Navajo Reservation in Arizona. He spent his childhood, raised by his sister, herding sheep on the reservation like any normal Navajo kid until he turned 15 and the attack on Pearl Harbor took place. When Keith found out he decided he wanted to enlist in the army or the navy but had to wait until he was 18.

As he grew up some of his friends enlisted in the Marine Corp., and after hearing back from them through letters he decided to enlist as a marine. Keith enlisted into the Marine Corp. when he turned 18 but was told to return to finish school and then come back. In 1943 while Keith was in boot camp in San Diego he was asked by his drill instructor if he was a Navajo Indian which he was. He was then transferred to Camp Pendleton to study the Navajo code and how to transmit messages.

After proving to the instructors that he was fluent in the code and could transmit perfect messages rather quickly, Keith was put into the Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines in the 4th Marine Division. They were sent first to Pearl Harbor and then to Kwajalein Atolls in the Marshall Islands. Keith participated in his first battle there.

The battle lasted two days and Keith was assigned to follow around a soldier and be his personal radio man. Being a radioman was usually pretty dangerous since soldiers would quickly shoot and take out an enemy radioman as soon as they see one. Keith learned a lot in his first battle and called it his "initiation".

Soon after that Keith was sent over to Saipan, a place in the Mariana Islands. He witnessed a lot of horrible things including banzai attacks which were sort of like suicide missions for Japanese soldiers. There Keith didn't need to send any confidential coded messages yet, but was still a radioman constantly in danger.

After returning back to Pearl Harbor, Keith Little was quickly sent out to Iwo Jima. He arrived on February 19th. When he first arrived he spent a few days basically running around and hiding. Soon though, Keith was coding many messages in the Navajo code. After his time at Iwo Jima he returned to Maui. He was there when the atomic bombs were dropped.

As soon as Keith returned home he retired from the military as a private. Hardly any Navajos or other Native Americans were promoted to any ranks beyond private or private first class from when they started the communication school possibly because the communication was supposed to be kept secret and confidential. The Code Talkers weren't truly recognized until about 1968 when the 4th marine division had a reunion in Chicago honoring them. Keith Little didn’t attend but received his medallion at Wind Rock at a separate reunion the Code Talkers had. Keith Little became a president of the Navajo Nation and served on its board for 16 years. The Code Talkers Association came about in the early 1970s in which Keith was elected and still is a treasurer.