NEW YORK — The famed Navajo Code Talkers, the elite Marine unit whose unbreakable code stymied the Japanese in World War II, fear their legacy will die with them.
About 50 of the 400 Code Talkers are believed to be still alive, most living in the Navajo Nation reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many are frail or ill, with little time left to tell the world about their wartime contribution.
But on Tuesday, 13 of the Code Talkers — some using canes, a few in wheelchairs — arrived in New York City to participate for the first time in the nation’s largest Veterans Day parade, set for today.
The young Navajo Marines, using secret Navajo language-encrypted military terms, helped the U.S. prevail at Iwo Jima and other World War II Pacific battles, serving in every Marine assault in the South Pacific between 1942 and 1945. Military commanders said the code, transmitted verbally by radio, helped to save countless American lives and to bring a speedier end to the war in the Pacific theater.
They were sworn to secrecy about their code, so complex that even other Navajo Marines couldn’t decipher it. Used to transmit secret tactical messages via radio or telephone, the code remained unbroken and classified for decades because of its potential postwar use.
The Code Talkers felt compelled to honor their secrecy orders, even after the code was declassified in 1968.
The oldest of the 13 living Code Talkers is 92, and the group includes one of the original 29. The Code Talkers in New York this week hope to highlight their efforts and financial needs for a museum being planned in New Mexico.
“Our language was used to help win the war,” said Samuel Tom Holiday, 85, of Kayenta, Ariz., who joined the Code Talkers when he was 20. He and two other Marines went behind enemy lines on Iwo Jima. “After we’re all gone, there will be no one to tell the story.”
