I don't mean to flame your choice of
Windtalkers, Movie Lover. I'm sure the virtues you saw in that film just shot past me. But for the sake of historical accuracy, I just gotta say that the whole premise of that movie was false. The Marines never had a plan or operation to shoot their own Navajo radiomen if they were in danger of capture, because the plan wasn't to protect the
code; it was to protect the Navajo radioman because of the importance of the
man himself! The guy carrying the radio was always a prime target in battle because if you knock him off, you disrupt communications between that unit and others. (Other specialties such as Medics also were targeted.) So the Marines assigned one or more riflemen as bodyguards to
protect Navajo radiomen, not to kill them. Because the so-called "code" wasn't important at all. Calling a tank a turtle or a plane a bird is no big thing since there was no words for tanks or planes in the original Navajo language. And even if an enemy learned the Navajo word for turtle and knew (it's not so hard to guess) that it meant tank, and if he then hears that word on the Marine radio system, he still can't tell if the Navajo "windtalker" is telling the tank to come forward, go back, move to the left or right, fire or don't fire
because the enemy doesn't understand the Navajo language! Knowing that the radioman is talking to or about a tank does no good if you don't know what he's saying. He may be talking about a friendly tank or an enemy one.
The Navajo grew up speaking that obscure dialect that is unique to them. It's the language itself and not some "code" that is impossible for the enemy to learn. The Japanese and Germans could (and did) learn English, French, Dutch, and any number of other "civilized" languages, just as our own code breakers learned Japanese and German, etc. But there was no where in the world that they could obtain a source for learning to speak Navajo. Even if they managed to capture a Navajo and get him behind the lines and forced him to teach a Japanese soldier to speak Navajo, the war would be over before the enemy soldier could become fluent enough in the language to be of any use. (Remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding and all the trouble that the groom got into by repeating the Greek phrases the bride's brother taught him?) Meanwhile, the real Navajos could decide to call a tank a badger, a doodlebug, or even a slow-moving rabbit instead of a turtle.
No offence, but the whole premise of that film just doesn't make sense.
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