The Unbreakable Code

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By By John Sharify

Summary

82-year-old Samuel Tso, one of the 'Windtalkers' in World War II who used his native Navajo language to send codes, is now a guest of honor at the Lummi Indian Reservation.

Story Published: Oct 19, 2004 at 12:22 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:35 AM PDT

The Unbreakable Code
BELLINGHAM - Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage gets top billing in the movie Windtalkers, but the real stars are the young Navajos who developed a military code during World War II, that was never broken by the enemy.

Not once.

Not even the Japanese, who prided themselves in breaking any code, could decipher the secrets.

82-year-old Samuel Tso spoke to us in code. Tso is a special guest of the Lummi Indian Reservation in Bellingham, speaking his language: Navajo. It's why the military wanted Samuel Tso in the Marine Corps in 1941.

It was because this young man and his tribal buddies spoke Navajo fluently. Navajo was an unwritten language at the time -- unwritten and indecipherable.

Someone figured out the Navajo language, which relies on inflection and guttural sounds, could become an indispensable tool to save lives and to win the war.

Samuel wasn't one of the original 29 who invented the code.

"I came in after the first 29," says Tso. And he went on to receive the Congressional Silver Medal for his role in the war and at Iwo Jima. One major wrote: "Were it not for the Navajos, the marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."

"It was perfection, wasn't it?" I asked him. "That's what Major Conner said," says Tso.

His son adds: "It was his little secret." Ron Tso didn't know his father was a code talker until he was a teenager. The top secret program became declassified in 1968.

"Oh yeah, I'm proud," says Ron Tso. "Always been proud".

Proud of his father, one of the heroes in the war who spoke his language and helped win the war.