The last of the 29 Navajo Americans who developed a code with their native language to encrypt military messages in World War 2 has died.
BBC News
4 June 2014
Chester Nez, 93, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had told US media he was “very proud” of his part developing the cipher the Japanese never broke.
It was credited with saving the lives of thousands of US troops in the Pacific…
…Nez was chosen from among 250 Navajos who arrived at the Army base in Arizona for the project. He was in high school at the time of his enlistment and lied about his age.
The code took words from the Navajo language, which was spoken by less than 30 non-Navajos at the time, and matched them to military terms. The Navajo word for turtle became “tank”, chicken hawk became “dive bomber” and “our mother” meant America.
About 400 code talkers used the cipher to relay messages sent from field telephones and radios throughout the Pacific. Messages read aloud by the code talkers were immediately destroyed…
The complete article is at BBC News.
Chester Nez is standing front left with other code talkers in 1942
