Museum shares secrets of Navajos' wartime aid
By David Hasemyer
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. August 10, 2009
Sawyer Kliesen, 8, of Amarillo, Texas, learned how to use the Checkerboard Code at the Museum of San Diego History. (Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune) -Online: To learn more about the Navajo code talkers from the MCRD Museum Historical Society, go to uniontrib.com/more/codetalk.
BALBOA PARK — One of the most complex codes ever used in warfare was created during World War II in San Diego by the Marine Corps using Navajo recruits and their intricate native language, a local historical footnote featured in a Museum of San Diego History presentation yesterday.
Navajo Indians were specially recruited during World War II to serve as code talkers in the Pacific, Gabe Selak, public programs manager for the San Diego Historical Society, told visitors attending the museum's Secret Codes and Espionage program.
It was gibberish to the confounded Japanese who tried to break the code, Selak said.
“They picked up on the transmissions and clearly heard what was being said, but it was just a jumble of sounds to them,” he said.
After a demonstration convinced Marine officers in 1942 that Navajo could be used successfully as code, 29 Navajos recruited from Arizona were sent to boot camp in San Diego.
After boot camp, where the Navajos also distinguished themselves as expert marksmen, they were sent to Camp Elliot in Kearny Mesa, where they learned how to use various communication devices such as walkie-talkies and radios.
It was at Camp Elliot, too, where the Navajos and Marine Corps communications personnel refined the code into an impenetrable jumble of sounds.
The code was among those featured by Selak in a presentation that included a brief history of secret communication used in wars from the Roman Empire Wars of Augustus, to the Civil War and World Wars I and II.
Selak explained codes from each of the four periods to the adults and children who stopped by the presentation, and he taught examples of three of the four. He did not try to teach the Navajo code. It was too complicated.
As an example, Selak said, the meaning of a word can change by the way it is pronounced.
“A change in tone, in inflection, can change the meaning of a word,” he said. “So you have to be very in tune to the language.”
The code consisted of 211 words – none put in writing – that were mostly Navajo terms that had been given military meanings to compensate for the lack of military terminology in the Navajo vocabulary.
For example, “fighter plane” was called “da-ha-tih-hi,” which meant “humming bird” in Navajo, Selak said.
Brad Golich, a middle school history teacher from Phoenix, was in attendance for the one-day program with his wife and two children. Being from Arizona, Golich said he was aware of the Navajo role as code talkers but did not know they were trained in San Diego.
“Being here has helped me with a better understanding of the code talkers,” he said.
The strength of the Navajo code was unequaled, said Ellen Guillemette, archivist for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego Command Museum, where the local history of the Navajo code talkers is preserved. Earlier this month, Chevron Mining Inc. donated 208 acres to the Navajo Code Talkers Association for a museum and veterans center near Window Rock, Ariz.
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Communicating in code
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