Last week, Trump’s Defense Department removed articles about Navajo code talkers from its websites amid an ongoing campaign to rid the military of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Once again, under Trump, opposition to DEI was used as a tool for denying opportunities to people of color, women, and minorities—if not erasing them entirely from the history books.
After three days of public outcry and lobbying from the Navajo Nation president and the tribal council to the White House and the Pentagon, the Defense Department gave up on this part of its effort to whitewash the past and abruptly reversed itself.
Here is the story of two code talkers, Marine radioman Thomas Begay and Navy Wave Winnie Breegle, who deserve to be remembered and who serve as examples of how diversity, equity, and inclusion helped win World War II.
Thomas Begay and Winnie Breegle
In February of 1945, 18-year-old radioman Thomas H. Begay went ashore with the 5th Signal Company, 27th Marine Regiment on a bloody beach in the shadow of Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. Begay was a Navajo, born in a traditional hogan in a remote area near Two Wells, New Mexico. In addition to being trained as a radioman, Begay was a “code talker.”
The Marines needed an “unbreakable” code for its island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. Navajo, which was unwritten and known by few outside the tribe, was chosen as the basis for the code.
Twenty-nine Navajos were recruited to develop the code in 1942. They took their language and assigned a Navajo word to each English letter. They also created special words for planes, ships, and weapons.
Understanding Navajo didn’t mean a person could understand the code. While a person fluent in the language would hear a message that translated into a list of words that seemingly had no connection to each other, a code talker would hear a very clear message.
In addition to being unbreakable, the new code also reduced the amount of time it took to transmit and receive secret messages. Because all 17 pages of the Navajo code were memorized, there was no need to encrypt and decipher messages with the aid of coding machines. So, instead of taking several minutes to send and receive one message, Navajo code talkers could send several messages within seconds. This made the Navajo code talker an important part of any Marine unit.
Thomas H. Begay had been sent to the 27th Marines as a replacement for another code talker who had been killed in action. He remembers that two code talkers were killed and three more were wounded on the first day of the battle.
During the battle of Iwo Jima, more than 800 messages were transmitted by Begay and his fellow code talkers. On the other side of the world, in an office in Washington DC, Winnie Breegle, a 25-year-old farm girl from Ohio, decoded over 400 of those messages, all of which were transmitted without error.
When she enlisted in the Navy, Breegle; who had taught Latin, Spanish, and English in high school; was trained as a cryptographer. Because there was a shortage of Navajo speakers, a program was set up to train WAVES (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) to understand the code. Winnie Breegle was one of the WAVES selected to become a code talker.
From Guadalcanal to Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima: the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions, and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language a code that the Japanese never broke. The original group of 29 code talkers was so effective that, by the end of the war, more than 400 Navajo servicemen had been called upon to carry out this critical task. Their contributions remained classified until 1968.
Begay was discharged from the Marines in 1946, but joined the Army a year later, where he worked as a communications specialist again and also qualified as a paratrooper. With the Army, he again experienced intense combat with the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, including at the Chosin Reservoir in late 1950. His experiences in Korea persuaded him to finally leave the military in 1953.
After leaving the military, Thomas Begay went to work for the federal government, becoming a senior administrator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Navajo reservation. With the BIA, he worked as an employment assistance officer for many years, helping Navajos to find employment and education opportunities both on the reservation and off. Drawing inspiration from his time in the Marine Corps, he remarked “if I can be a Code Talker, any Navajo can go out and be anything.” By the end of his career with the BIA, he was serving as Agency Superintendent of the Chinle Agency. He has been active in the Navajo Code Talkers Association, with whom he travels and speaks to the public, and has also written and performed many of his own songs in Navajo about World War II.
In 2001, Begay received the Congressional Silver Medal, recognizing his exceptional service as a Navajo code talker. Thomas Begay, at 98, is one of only two Navajo code talkers still living.
Winnie Breegle served as a Navy WAVE from Feb. 19, 1944, to 1946, and in the regular Navy from 1946 to 1949. After the war, Breegle returned to teaching. She taught middle and high school classes in history and science, as well as English, Latin, and journalism for 35 years.
Winnie Breegle has been called an American hero. She replied, “Those Navajo men were heroes. You won’t read about this in school books, and that’s a shame. They are the reason we won the war. The atom bomb and the Navajo Code Talkers are what won the war in the Pacific.”
Winnie Breegle passed away at the age of 100 on January 3, 2023.
Navajo Code Talkers: A Guide to First-Person Narratives in the Veterans History Project
TONIGHT: Meet Winnie Breegle! She's turning 100 on Saturday and is a WWII veteran who helped the Navajo Code Talkers during the most pivotal moments of the war.
You won't want to miss her story! @FOXNashville pic.twitter.com/PIb4TnThTa
— Amanda Chin (@amandachintv) February 2, 2022