The Navajo Code Talkers

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc., 1973. First Edition Fourteenth Printing . Hard Back. Very Good/Very Good. 5 3/4" x 8 1/2. Grandee, Joe Ruiz - Painting - Ira Hayes - His Dream His Reality - Page 119. 170 Pages. Inscribed on the front endpaper by ten Navajo code-talkers seven of whom listed their units. Illustrated with black and white photographs throughout. The dust jacket has minor wear and a closed 3/4 inch tear at the top edge. The original flap price $17 is present. At the beginning of World War 2 a civil engineer in Los Angeles, Philip Johnston, suggested to the Marines a plan to prevent communications from being decoded by the highly-trained, ingenious Japanese cryptographers. This book tells the story, and the acceptance of the plan to employ a code based on the Navaho tongue, following a protracted period of weighing it in the balances, and the part the code eventually played in confusing the enemy. This book is about the brave, sometimes inscrutable Navajos, with the spotlight on the code talkers who transmitted countless messages during World War 2 in a language so foreign to the Japanese that not a syllable was ever deciphered. It was indeed a secret weapon. Contents in Ten Chapters: The Secret Weapon, The Pilot Project, The Navajos as Marines, The Navajo Code, Expansion of the Code, The Navajo Code Talkers in Action, A Profile of Experiences in the Pacific, Return of the Navajo, Honoring the Code Talkers, and Century of Achievement. Plus Appendix, Bibliography, and Prologue.