Good morning! November is Native American History Month: the website https://indigenousmathematicians.org/ highlights many mathematicians and was updated in 2021.
Today’s math topic is codes – the kind where messages are encoded for secrecy. During World War I, 19 Choctaw soldiers used the Choctaw language as a code for sending military messages in secret. As described in the website for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma:
During the first world war, with the tapping of the American Army’s phone lines, the Germans were able to learn the location of where the Allied Forces were stationed, as well as where supplies were kept. When the Choctaw men were put on the phones and talked in their Native speech, the Germans couldn’t effectively spy on the transmissions.
Native Americans did not receive nationwide citizenship until 1924, yet the Choctaws were both patriotic and valiant, with a desire to serve in the war effort. Many Choctaw men volunteered in WWI to fight for our country. Choctaw Code Talkers of WWI were instrumental in ending war. Members of Choctaw and other Tribal Nations also served with distinction using Native languages in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
In World War II the Marine Corp recruited 29 Diné (Navajo) men to develop a much more complicated code based on their language:
The code primarily used word association by assigning a Navajo word to key phrases and military tactics. This system enabled the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds, not 30 minutes as was common with existing code-breaking machines. The Code Talkers participated in every major Marine operation in the Pacific theater, giving the Marines a critical advantage throughout the war. During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima, for example, six Navajo Code Talker Marines successfully transmitted more than 800 messages without error. Marine leadership noted after the battle that the Code Talkers were critical to the victory at Iwo Jima. At the end of the war, the Navajo Code remained unbroken. (from intelligence.gov)
In 2000 the Code Talkers were awarded with Congressional Gold Medals.
Sources:
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