December 1941, USA just entered the Second World War. At that moment, the High Command realizes a major problem: they lack a code with which to send your most confidential information. Exasperated, they will find the solution thanks to the proposal of the civil engineer Philip Johnston: use the language navajo.
Introduction
Due to the international isolation of the USA during the s. XIX and part of the s. XX, several military aspects remained somewhat backward in the North American country. And one of them was cryptology. While Germany used the complex “Enigma” encryption machine and Britain had during the 1920s upgraded its antiquated code in favor of the modern “TypeX” (a simplified copy of the German “Enigma”), USA it lacked a truly secure channel for sending information.
The Signal Intelligence Service (SIS), created in 1930 as a subdivision of the National Security Agency (NSA), was grossly underdeveloped. Until 1942, only four people worked on deciphering and sending codes for the SIS, three mathematicians with no experience in cryptanalysis (Solomon Kullback, Frank Rowlett, and Abraham Sinkov) and a geneticist, the head of the unit, William Friedman. With such a small staff and a ridiculous budget, the SIS did not have the means to carry out its work with a minimum of guarantees. Namely, intercepting messages became a pipe dream and sending them was even more complicated due to the absence of a codebook. In addition to the tremendous flaws and weaknesses of his encryption machine, the Herbern Rotor Machine, designed in 1920.
So, in an almost desperate attempt to make their transmissions secure, the military in 1940 recruited Comanches, Choctaws, Hopis, Cherokees, and other natives to transmit messages. They trusted that their almost forgotten languages would be a hard stumbling block for their enemies. In fact, the Choctaw language was already used, partially, in the First World War, a sign of the few advances that had been made in this matter. For the recruitment of natives, the army created a special section, based in Oklahoma, in order to find American Indians willing to help the USA.
But this was not enough and the flaws came to light when Japanese encryptors, most of them educated in USA and knowledgeable of the language and colloquialisms, they deciphered American messages in the Pacific without apparent difficulty, creating innumerable casualties for their enemy.
It would be in January 1942 when the civil engineer Philip Johnston, almost by chance, as these things usually happen, came up with the solution. Johnston was at his home in Los Angeles when, reading the newspaper, he came across a report on military security, emphasizing the lack of a code secret soldier in the US Army. Johnston was the son of two Protestant missionaries who moved to a reservation razor when the little boy was 4 years old. There, Johnston learned the language navajo, since his only playmates were the native children. Already an engineer, Johnston enlisted in the US Army and participated in World War I in France.
Although he was discharged from the army and later rejected for enlistment because of his advanced age, Johnston reported to Camp Elliot near San Diego in early February 1942, where he tried to convince Lt. Col. James E. Jones, the communications officer of the Marine Corps, that a code based on the language navajo it was the answer to his pleas, and that, above all, could not be deciphered by any enemy ever. Jones was very reticent about Johnston’s idea, especially since sooner or later all code gets cracked and native languages had proven too weak.
However, Johnston knew how to play his cards. He developed before Jones an elaborate presentation and argumentation of his reasons, such as that the navajo it had no writing, its grammar was extremely complex (the position of the stress on one syllable or another of the word completely changed its meaning) and it had no similarity to any other known language. But, most importantly, it was a “hidden language”, that is, unlike many other native languages, it had not been studied by linguists nor was it taught in philology faculties. It is estimated that by 1940 less than 30 people of non- navajo they could speak that language all over the world. And Johnston was one of them.
The navajo on the Second World War
Johnston’s idea was subjected to numerous tests by the Marines, who remained skeptical of the idea of the Navajo as a code unbreakable. After creating a small dictionary based on the books of codes pre-existing passwords, a twenty-word message was delivered to Johnston, a group of Marine coding experts, and inserted into a decryption machine with the pre-entered key. It took the machine more than half an hour to decode the message. The Marines, without a dictionary, were incapable. Johnston did it in 20 seconds. Lieutenant Colonel James was surprised, but he would do one more test.
Johnston had two weeks to recruit four Navajo and bring them to Camp Elliot. Once there, two Navajo received a new message that they had to encrypt, send and that would be decrypted by the other two Navajo. A group of marines, arranged this time with a dictionary navajo-English should perform the same task. The four of them Navajo They took around 2 and a half minutes to encode, send and decode the message with excellent accuracy and without losing any sense or meaning. The group of marines, helped by a dictionary, more than 5 hours.
Do you want to try it yourself? Here she left you two messages in navajo:
Ne-Zhoni-Lin-Tkin-Ah-Jad-Tkin-Ne-Zhoni Ah-Ya-Tsinne-A-Kha-Lin-A-Chin-Klesh-D-Ah-A-Kha-A-Chin
Tkin-Gloe-lh-A-Kha Ah-Ya-Tsinne-Tkin-Tsin-Tliti-Tse-Nill
Incomprehensible, right? I’m going to help you a bit. Use this table/dictionary similar to the one the marines used in the Johnston tests. You will find the correct answer at the end of the article.
hint: both codes are two words, and both appear in this article.
Letter Navajo Word Translation A WOL-LA-CHEE ANT A BE-LA-SANA APPLE A TSE-NILL AX B NA-HASH-CHID BADGER B SHUSH BEAR B TOISH-JEH BARREL C MOASI CAT C TLA-GIN COAL C BA- GOSHI COW D BE DEER D CHINDI DEVIL D LHA-CHA-EH DOG E AH-JAH EAR E DZEH ELK E AH-NAH EYE F CHUO FIR F TSA-E-DONIN-EE FLY F MA-E FOX G AH-TAD GIRL G KLIZZIE GOAT G JEHA GUM H TSE-GAH HAIR H CHA HAT H LIN HORSE I TKIN ICE I YEH-HES ITCH I A-CHI INTESTINE J TKELE-CHO-G JACKASS J AH-YA-TSINNE JAW J YIL-DOI JERK K JAD-HO-LONI KETTLE K BA-AH-NE-DI-TININ KEY K KLIZZIE-YAZZIE KID L DIBEH-YAZZIE LAMB L AH-JAD LEG L NASH-DOIE-TSO LION M TSIN-TLITI MATCH M BE-TAS-TNI MIRROR M NA-AS-TSO-SI MOUSE N TSAH NEEDLE N A-CHIN NOSE O A-KHA OIL O TLO-CHIN ONION O NE-AHS-JAH OWL P CLA-GI-AIH PANT P BI-SO-DIH PIG P NE-ZHONI PRETTY Q CA-YEILTH QUIVER R GAH RABBIT R DAH-NES-TSA RAM R AH-LOSZ RICE S DIBEH SHEEP S KLESH SNAKE T D-AH TEA T A-WOH TOOTH T THAN-ZIE TURKEY U SHI-DA UNCLE U NO-DA-IH UTE V A-KEH-DI-GLINI VICTOR W GLOE-IH WEASEL X AL- NA-AS-DZOH CROSS Y TSHA-AS-ZIH YUCCA Z BESH-DO-TLIZ ZINC
And there are only the loose letters. The complete dictionary can be found here
The success of the idea was such that a letter signed by Major General Clayton Vogel was urgently sent to the President of the USA and one to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. In it, permission was requested to recruit a total of 200 Navajo for encryption work. As had happened at the beginning, in Washington they were reticent. The President did not answer and the Commandant of the Marines only gave permission to recruit 30 Navajo for a pilot project. In no case did he wish to leave the destiny of the USA in the hands of one civilian (Johnston) and two hundred natives. Thus, if the project failed, it would be easy to dissolve.
In mid-April the recruitment of volunteers began. Several marines showed up in reserves pocketknives looking for candidates. In addition to mastering the native language and English, the recruits had to be physically fit, for although they were not told the purpose of their assignment, they were told that they would serve as “specialists” on the front lines. Among the 30 volunteers there were several minors, some 15 years old. Like the Navajo did not keep their birth certificate, all were accepted. And on the contrary. Carl Gorman, one of the encryptors, was 36 years old at the time of the draft, which meant that he was too old to enlist. He lied and said he was 26 years old. After all, no one would check.
For many of the volunteers, the trip to the outskirts of San Diego meant leaving the reservation for the first time, riding a bus or train for the first time, or admiring the ocean. And it was also the first time they faced a discipline like the army. The first few weeks were difficult for the 382nd Marine Corps regiment, better known as “the navajo school”.
After learning to march in formation, obey orders, and keep the barracks clean, they were transferred to Camp Pendelton, where they would begin their encryption training. There, the Navajo worked side by side with professional encryptors to expand and refine the dictionary and the code. For June, the dictionary navajo had a total of 63 phonemes representing 26 letters (Code Type I) and 411 words (Code Type II), some of them, such as specific types of aircraft or weapons, specially created for the occasion, since they did not exist in the original language. It is important to mention that, although a dictionary was created, it was never brought to the front. Its use was limited to the training of coders in USAThey had to learn it by heart.
“Well, when they first got us in there for Code Talkers, we had to work that out among our own selves so, we didn’t have a word for tank, for example. And the one said it’s like a turtle, you know. It has a hard shell and it moves and so we called it a Chay-Da-Gahia turtle.”
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“Well, when they told us that we were going to be encryptors, we had to do a lot of work on our own, we didn’t have a word for tank, for example. And one said it was like a turtle, you know. It has a hard shell and it moves, so we call it Chay-Da-Gahitortoise.”
29 of the 30 recruits, one a dropout, graduated in July 1942 as the first class of coders Navajo of history. Of these, eight remained in San Diego as instructors, two were sent to the reserves as recruiters, and the other 19 sent to the front line, to Guadalcanal, where they would serve under Major General Alexander Vandegrift of the First Division of…