Facts about Navajo Nation Code Talkers

1. 07

   Six code talkers operated around the clock during the first 48 hours of the Battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945, sending over 800 error-free messages.

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2. 06

   Classified for decades after World War II, the Navajo Code Talkers' program remained secret until the U.S. government declassified it in 1968.

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3. 05

   Navajo Code Talkers served in every Marine division, Marine Raider battalion, and Marine parachute unit in the Pacific, transmitting messages under battlefield conditions.

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4. 04

   Philip Johnston, a civil engineer who had grown up on the Navajo reservation, proposed the Navajo Code Talker program to the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942.

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5. 03

   Approximately 400 Navajo men served as Code Talkers across multiple Marine divisions in the Pacific theater of World War II.

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6. 02

   The Navajo Code Talkers were formally recognized by the U.S. Congress with the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the original group in 2001.

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7. 01

   During World War II, the Navajo Nation Code Talkers developed an unbreakable military communications code based on the Navajo language, which had no written form.

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