Based on first-person accounts and Marine Corps documents, and featuring the original code dictionary, Navajo Weapon tells how the code talkers created a unique code within a code, served their country in combat, and saved American lives.

Details the little known stories of Navajo code talkers of World War II. It tells of the unlikely union of Navajo people and the United States Marine Corps during the war in the South Pacific.

On the Pacific front during World War II, strange messages were picked up by American and Japanese forces on land and at sea. The messages were totally unintelligible to everyone except a small select group within the Marine Corps: the Navajo code talkers-a group of Navajos communicating in a code based on the Navajo language. This code, the first unbreakable one in U.S. history, was a key reason that the Allies were able to win in the Pacific. Navajo Code Talkers tells the story of the special group, who proved themselves to be among the bravest, most valuable, and most loyal of American soldiers during World War II.

"A story based on the important role the Navajo Code Talkers played in the Pacific during WWII."--Provided by publisher.

Based on first-person accounts and Marine Corps documents, and featuring the original code dictionary, Navajo Weapon tells how the code talkers created a unique code within a code, served their country in combat, and saved American lives.

This focuses on the history, costume, and material culture of the native peoples of North America. It was in the Southwest – modern Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California and other neighboring states – that the first major clashes took place between 16th-century Spanish conquistadors and the indigenous peoples of North America. This history of contact, conflict, and coexistence with first the Spanish, then their Mexican settlers, and finally the Americans, gives a special flavor to the region. Despite nearly 500 years of white settlement and pressure, the traditional cultures of the peoples of the Southwest survive today more strongly than in any other region. The best-known clashes between the whites and the Indians of this region are the series of Apache wars, particularly between the early 1860s and the late 1880s. However, there were other important regional campaigns over the centuries – for example, Coronado's battle against the Zuni at Hawikuh in 1540, during his search for the legendary “Seven Cities of Cibola”; the Pueblo Revolt of 1680; and the Taos Revolt of 1847 – and warriors of all of these are described and illustrated in this book.

The first and only memoir by one of the original Navajo code talkers of WWII. His name wasn’t Chester Nez. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. And in boarding school at Fort Defiance, he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers sought to rid him of his culture and traditions. But discrimination didn’t stop Chester from answering the call to defend his country after Pearl Harbor, for the Navajo have always been warriors, and his upbringing on a New Mexico reservation gave him the strength—both physical and mental—to excel as a marine. During World War II, the Japanese had managed to crack every code the United States used. But when the Marines turned to its Navajo recruits to develop and implement a secret military language, they created the only unbroken code in modern warfare—and helped assure victory for the United States over Japan in the South Pacific. INCLUDES THE ACTUAL NAVAJO CODE AND RARE PICTURES