It Had to Be Done: The Navajo Code Talkers Remember World War II

In early 1942, during the darkest months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a group of 29 Navajo Marines, young and fresh out of boot camp, were taken into a room with bars on the windows and a guard at the door. Their task: devise a top-secret code that would thwart the sharpest cryptanalytic minds in Imperial Japan. And they succeeded. This book documents their staggering wartime achievement: the formation and use of the Navajo Code. But the book is also about the lives of eight Navajo Code Talkers, told in their own words: the difficult living conditions faced during their childhood, and their boarding school experiences where the Navajo language was strictly sometimes brutally suppressed. This is their story. It's a story about a code of humble origins; a code that the most brilliant minds were unable to break; a code that saved thousands of American lives in World War 2. It's a story about their hazardous duty from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and Okinawa often performed under murderous enemy fire, with some paying the ultimate price. It's a story about intelligence, courage, and ultimately, about patriotism. Softcover, 7 x 10 inches, 96 pages, b/w illustrations, index. Appendices include the Navajo Code and a list of all known Navajo Code Talkers. This book was written with the cooperation of members of the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Sales of this book supports the Navajo Code Talkers Association, a non-profit organization.