Most readers will already be familiar with the Navajo code talkers who
served vital roles during the second World War. I, for one, however,
didn't realize that
code talking was first made use of during the Great War.
In the autumn of 1918, US troops were involved in the Meuse-Argonne
Offensive on the Western Front. It was one of the largest frontline
commitments of American soldiers in WW1, but communications in the field
were compromised. The Germans had successfully tapped telephone lines,
were deciphering codes and repeatedly capturing runners sent out to
deliver messages directly...
The solution was stumbled upon by chance, an overheard conversation
between two Choctaw soldiers in the 142nd Infantry Regiment. The pair
were chatting in camp when a captain walked by and asked what language
they were speaking...
"Using the Choctaw language had huge advantages," says Dr William
Meadows of Missouri State University, the only academic to have studied
and written extensively on the Choctaw code talkers. "It was a largely
unknown language. Only a few American Indian tribes had more than 20,000
people so their languages weren't widely spoken and most weren't
written down...
Even if the Germans were listening, they couldn't understand. It was
also the quickest way of coding and decoding information, faster than
any machine, giving US troops a crucial edge over the enemy... It is
believed none of the languages or codes used have ever been broken by an
enemy.
Further details at the
BBC, where note is made of this irony:
But at the same time,the Choctaw language was under pressure back in the
US. It was a time of cultural assimilation. Government attempts to
"civilize" American Indians involved putting their children in state-run
boarding schools, where they were often severely punished for speaking
in their native tongue.
No comments:
Post a Comment