Stars and Stripes by Meredith Tibbetts November 13, 2015
Navajo Code Talker, Chester Nez
Chester Nez, Navajo Code Talker, relied on his native language to develop the code, which helped to turn the course of World War II in the favor of the Allies. “I was very proud to say that the Japanese did everything in their power to break that code but they never did,” Chester Nez said in an interview with Stars and Stripes. If any Navajo Code Talker was caught, he said, they would be tortured and their tongues cut out. They risked everything for the United States, even though they were raised in military boarding schools that prohibited them from speaking their native language.
Chester Nez in uniform
That didn’t stop them from whispering Navajo to each other in secret, said Latham Nez, who travels with his grandfather helping him tell his story. Their language, however, would serve the United States well later, in 1942, when Americans were dying in rising numbers overseas, especially in the Pacific. The Japanese seemed to know what the U.S. military was planning well before it took place.
Navajo Code Talker, Chester Nez
Chester Nez, Navajo Code Talker, relied on his native language to develop the code, which helped to turn the course of World War II in the favor of the Allies. “I was very proud to say that the Japanese did everything in their power to break that code but they never did,” Chester Nez said in an interview with Stars and Stripes. If any Navajo Code Talker was caught, he said, they would be tortured and their tongues cut out. They risked everything for the United States, even though they were raised in military boarding schools that prohibited them from speaking their native language.
Chester Nez in uniform
That didn’t stop them from whispering Navajo to each other in secret, said Latham Nez, who travels with his grandfather helping him tell his story. Their language, however, would serve the United States well later, in 1942, when Americans were dying in rising numbers overseas, especially in the Pacific. The Japanese seemed to know what the U.S. military was planning well before it took place.
Find more stories of virtue tested in battle at MitchSchmidtke.com.
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