Native Americans in WW2
The year was 1941 and the Second World War had been going on for a while. All the nations already in war the United States were still not in involved. The United States was still neutral but supplying the allies with materials. Until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. On December 8, 1941 the United States declared war on Japan. From the time the United States entered the war on 1941 to 1945 over 60 million Americans served the United States military.
Native Americans served the military and about 2,500 participated in the war. Men from different tribes had gone to war like the Zuni Pueblo, Navajos, and many more. The Native American men enjoyed the integration. Their fellow soldiers had respect for the Native Americans because of the legend of Indians warriors being tough. The contact with the outside world caused a change in the Native American culture. ”The war," said the United States Indian commissioner in 1945,"caused the greatest disruption of Indian life since the beginning of the reservation era", affecting the habits, views, and economic well being of tribal members. [1] The Navajos served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language. [2]The idea came from Philip Johnston knowing that the military was searching for a new code that would be hard to break. He knew that Native American languages like the Choctaw was used in World War I the Navajo language didn’t have an alphabet or symbols. It was only spoken on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. On May 1942 the first 29 Navajo recruits went to boot camp. Once a Navajo finished his training, he was sent to a Marine unit in the Pacific Theater. Their job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other battlefield communications over telephones and radios. A good code talker would be able to encode,...