Photograph of Navajo Code Talkers

A Student’s Guide to Essential Primary Sources
Table of Contents
Photograph of Navajo Code Talkers
Overview
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Short-Answer Questions
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844179.book-part-153

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Abstract

During World War II, it was crucial for Allied troops to maintain secrecy in their radio and telephone transmissions. To that end, messages were encoded, but the ongoing concern was that Japanese (and German) code breakers could break the codes and thereby know the disposition, movement, and intentions of Allied troops. In 1942, the United States hit on a solution for more effectively conducting the war in the Pacific by keeping codes secret: it recruited Navajo as “code talkers.

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