The most recent addition to Osprey's Warrior series is this edition on Native American Code Talkers. Though initially used in WWI during the last months of the war, it is World War II that brought the true usefulness of this method of passing needed information to the forefront.

Basically, native Americans from the Navajo and Cherokee tribes were used. There was a great deal of additional training done as many technical terms did not exist in either languages. This required the use of code words to be developed as well as ways of spelling out non-established words as needed. These code words were also updated as time went on, requiring a constant re-training syllabus so that talkers would be kept up to date.

It may seem unusual, but the army showed very little interest in using code talkers. They felt that they could get their information across just fine using mechanical means. It was the Marine Corps that found these soldiers to be of the most use. Initially there was skepticism amongst field officers as to the effectiveness of code talking, but when it was demonstrated that a message that took hours to be coded, decoded and presented to the units by machine could be done in minutes via code talking, most of that skepticism faded away. Still, even in the Marines there were unit commanders who used code talkers like ordinary communications specialists, squandering a very useful asset to their command.

This book tells the story of these men. How they were recruited, how they were trained and how they were used in combat. There is more on the equipment they used, and how these men fit into the normal combat scenarios, something quite unusual for Navajos who are, by choice, mostly pacifists. There are sections on the Japanese attempts to break the codes, something they were never able to do even though they had managed to capture and brutally torture at least one man during the war.

There is further enhancement of the reading experience with period photos and the illustrations of R. Ruggeri. It is a book that I know you will find to be an excellent read and one that I can highly recommend to you.

April 2008.

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