Text Version of Audio Story: Code - copyright 2007 Nelson Lauver - May not be reprinted, reproduced or published without permission

I wasn�t there, so I can�t tell you first hand, but I�ve interviewed enough people who were, and I�ve read the history of that era enough so as to know that World War II should really have been called the war to save the world.

Hitler was a total mad man, so too was Mussolini. And Hirohito had ambitions with no regard for the overall good of this planet or its inhabitants. On one side, you had the Allied forces of which the United States belonged, fighting to save the world for mankind. On the other side were these monsters of such horrific proportion that even science fiction would be hard-pressed to create a group of characters so diabolical, so bent on taking over the world to serve their individual desires and selfishness.

I don�t think those of us who were born after the war will ever fully appreciate the sacrifices made � sacrifices made literally to save the world. Had these brave men and women not stepped up for duty, the Hitler family would today be using our White House as a summer home.

The war in the South Pacific would prove to be most challenging of all. If ever there was a smart enemy, it was the Empire of Japan. Time and again, the Japanese would intercept and crack the American secret code of communication. They were masters of deciphering code and thwarting the most well-planned missions of U.S. armed forces. If we were to win this war � the war to save the world � we would have to devise a code so complex and so elaborate that no matter how hard the Japanese worked, they would never be able to crack it. Without a fool-proof secret code, there was no hope for an American victory.

Mr. Philip Johnson had grown up the son of a missionary on Indian reservations in the southwestern United States. With the help of Johnson, America turned to the men of the Navajo nation.

Johnson was one of only several Americans outside of the Navajo tribe who could speak the language � an unwritten language so complex if you didn�t grow up with it, it was literally impossible to learn. Under the utmost cloak of secrecy, the Marine Corps started to recruit Navajo tribesman to develop the code and utilize it in the war zone, thus the legend was born of the Navajo code talkers.

No one ever dreamed just how successful this secret code would become, not to mention efficient. One Navajo code talker could transmit a several line message to another and have it deciphered within twenty seconds � a task that took the best decoding machines of the day thirty minutes.

At one of the most famous battles of the war, Major Howard Conner declared had it not been for the speed and accuracy of the Navajo code talkers, American forces would not have triumphed in taking Iwo Jima. During the battle, code talkers transmitted more than eight hundred messages, all without even one error.

The code talkers transmitted their messages right from the front lines and were so valuable to the war effort that orders were given should imminent capture from the enemy seem inevitable, code talkers must be shot dead to protect the code. Fortunately, no such order ever needed to be carried out.

After the war, code talkers went back to the lives they knew on the reservation. But because of their highly classified post, they were not permitted to speak of their service. In 1968, their files were declassified and for the first time, the world learned of these heroes.

In 2001, President George W. Bush, in a Capitol Rotunda ceremony, awarded the four surviving code talkers and the families of those who have since passed on with a Congressional Gold Medal. The Navajo word for thank you is �CAN�T FIND.�

I�m the American Storyteller.