Chester Nez, the last surviving Navajo code talker, has died. The title comes from Johnny Cash's song "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (Hayes was another Native American Marine from WW2 - one of the men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima).
Bit of history: Shortly after the U.S. entered WW2, they ran into problems due to the Japanese having broken their codes. In order to maintain secure communications, Navajo natives were recruited - their language didn't share roots with any languages spoken outside North America, was extremely difficult for "outsiders" to learn, and was unlikely to have been studied (even as an academic exercise) by anyone in Japan.
Bit of history: Shortly after the U.S. entered WW2, they ran into problems due to the Japanese having broken their codes. In order to maintain secure communications, Navajo natives were recruited - their language didn't share roots with any languages spoken outside North America, was extremely difficult for "outsiders" to learn, and was unlikely to have been studied (even as an academic exercise) by anyone in Japan.
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