GETTING AWAY

Honoring the Code Talkers
           
Arizona’s first and only Navajo Code Talker Museum opened in Tuba City in 2007, more than 60 years after those it honors earned their heroic distinction. Although they were instrumental in winning several battles during World War II, only a very few knew about their existence until 1962. And it took another 30 years before the entire story was made public and the Code Talkers were finally recognized for their efforts.

Now their feats have been extolled, examined, explained and even exploited in literature and on film. They are the subjects of more than 500 books, several TV documentaries and “Windtalkers,” a full-length movie.

The concept of utilizing Navajos for secure communications in the South Pacific originated with Philip Johnston, who was reared on the Navajo reservation and spoke their language fluently. He knew about the military’s search for an unbreakable code and suggested the Navajo tongue because it was an unwritten language of extreme complexity and was spoken only on the tribal lands of the American Southwest.
Johnston convinced military officials that the plan was workable and in May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits created the code at Camp Pendleton, Calif. They were then deployed to the Pacific theater where they used their language to transmit information on tactics and troop movements so skillfully that the Japanese were unable to decipher a single message.

By the end of the war, about 400 young Navajos were trained as code talkers. But, because the language was considered potentially valuable as a code even after the war, the young heroes were sworn to secrecy for 23 years, until the government declassified the story in 1968.

More than 30 years later, in 2001, an Act of Congress awarded Congressional Medals of Honor to all the code talkers, gold to the first 29 and silver to the others.

   
Although they have been elevated to a lofty status in the legends of American warfare, the museum that pays them tribute is small and unimposing. It’s located in an annex at the rear of the Tuba City Trading Post, near the Explore Navajo Interactive Museum. Inside, visitors can watch a film clip about the code talkers, then examine displays of arms, radios and other equipment they used during campaigns on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Old photographs depict the young men being sworn in, developing the code and using the code for its intended purpose. Tableaus, posters, wartime memorabilia and books about the men complete the exhibit.

Although the Tuba City facility is recognized as the only official Code Talker museum in Arizona, the heroes are honored in at least four other venues.

At Kayenta, Richard Mike has put an impressive collection of code talker artifacts on display in the local Burger King, which he owns, and in the Shadehouse Museum, which he built. He came by the collection because his father, King Paul Mike, was a code talker who retrieved the articles during his wartime career.

The Burger King display is filled with letters, flags, uniform parts and some weaponry. Richard Mike built the Shadehouse Museum next to the fast food outlet because he had more code talker stuff but no place to put it. It’s a small structure, faced with split pine logs and surrounded by Navajo hogans and sweat lodges. The contents include not only code talker memorabilia but also historical items about the tribe. There is no charge to see either display.

The Monument Valley Visitor Center, located 23 miles north of Kayenta, has one wall dedicated to the code talkers. The exhibit consists of documents, photographs and written commendations that trace the origins of the servicemen and detail their valor.
Two other tributes are monumental, in the strictest sense of the word.
One is in downtown Phoenix, on the northeast corner of Thomas Road and Central Avenue. It is a huge bronze of a seated Navajo holding a flute. The inscription says the sculpture, done by Doug Hyde, represents “the spirit of the Navajo Code Talkers...who bravely served this country during World War II.”

The other is the Navajo Code Talkers Veterans Memorial in Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation. It's also a sculpture, portraying a code talker in full military gear and created by Navajo/Ute sculptor Oreland Joe. It sits on the grounds of the tribal headquarters, near the geologic formation that gives the city its name.
Today, there are fewer than 50 code talkers still alive.

Sam Lowe has been writing about Arizona for more than 35 years.

Photos by Sam Lowe