Silent voices of WWII: The Navajo Code Talkers’ vital, secret role in the Pacific Theater

Los Alamos World War II historian Nancy Bartlit will first cover, through archival and recent photographs, the development of the Navajo Code and how the “Code within a Code” was incomprehensible to the Japanese as well as to other Navajo.

After a short refreshment break, she will discuss how the U.S. Navy deployed these U.S. Marine radio men to transmit messages from the front lines, to the beaches, and then to command centers on ships. Their accurate and immediate coding and decoding hastened America’s advance across Japanese held islands—from Guadalcanal, to Tinian Island, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, which brought American forces within final striking distance of Japan in the final months of the war in the Pacific.

Refreshments sponsored by the Bradbury Science Museum Association.