August 14- Navajo Code Talkers Day

Navajo Code Talker Joe Morris Sr in 2007 photo

Twenty nine years ago yesterday, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation that August 14 be known as Navajo Code Talkers Day. This was among the first official acts of recognition since the program was declassified in 1968.

"Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate August 14, 1982, as National Navaho Code Talkers Day, a day dedicated to all members of the Navaho Nation and to all Native Americans who gave of their special talents and their lives so that others might live. I ask the American people to join me in this tribute, and I call upon Federal, State and local officials to commemorate this day with appropriate activities."

[Sorry I'm a day behind with this, by the way- NANESB!]



At the outbreak of WWII, it was believed that there were no more than 30 non-Navajo people in the world familiar with the language- none of them Japanese.



Sensing an opportunity to confound Japanese eavesdroppers, in 1942 Marine Corps brass began gathering and training Navajo recruits to create and communicate a code in their native Navajo tongue. Throughout the war, Imperial Japanese military cryptographers were never able to decipher the Navajo's code. However, after the war, the program remained secret and the departing Navajo recruits were sworn to secrecy until the Code Talker project was declassified in 1968.



The Code Talkers participated in nearly every Marine assault in the pacific theater between 1942 and 1945. To this day, the Navajo Code Talkers proved to be the most effective known means of encrypted communication in modern warfare.



On Sunday, July 17th Code Talker Joe Morris Sr passed away at age 85 from complications due to a stroke at the VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, CA.



Morris had just turned 17 and was working in an Arizona mine when he was drafted in 1943. He credited a Navajo medicine man that also worked in the mine with keeping him safe throughout the war, saying that the shaman prayed a day and a half for his safety. After the war, Morris married and settled in Dagget, CA where he had a civilian job with a Marine supply center until he retired in 1984.



Joe Morris Sr is survived by his wife of 61 years, two sons, a daughter, three brothers and three grandchildren.

D-Day, The Higgins Boat & The Big Easy

Today marked the 67th anniversary of D-Day, the day the Allied assault on fortified coastal German positions in occupied Northern France began in earnest after months of preparation.

The decision to establish a National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, LA was influenced in large part by the then-ubiquitous barges used to ferry troops and supplies to shore for the Allies, not only on D-Day, but throughout the Pacific Theater as well. These craft were called 'Higgins Boats', named after Columbus, NE native Andrew Jackson Higgins.

In the 1920s, the woodworker left his native Nebraska to set up shop in New Orleans where he started an import/export lumber business. He also used some of that lumber to build shallow draft boats for trappers and oil men along the Gulf coast.

During the Great Depression, Higgins used his own capital to start up his own boatmaking business and had persistently lobbied the US Navy to demonstrate small craft of his design. Eventually the Navy relented, and while they were pleased with the performance of his 'spoonbill' bowed-craft during trials in the late 1930s, there was still the matter of men and equipment having to disembark by climbing over the sides of the craft, leaving them exposed to enemy fire in the process.


However, the US Navy learned of Japanese landing craft during the Manchurian invasion that featured a ramp for troops, supplies and vehicles to disembark via the bow once in shallow water or the beach. Higgins and designers from his shop were able to incorporate the front-end ramp into his design. The new craft was approved by the Navy and was known as the LCVP (short for Landing Craft- Vehicle, Personnel). However, the Higgins factory in New Orleans would turn out around 20,000 such boats throughout the course of the war- giving them the moniker 'Higgins Boats'.

Day That Will Live in Infamy: 69 Years Ago Today- Japanese Navy Launches Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor

US Navy Archives

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which destroyed 4 battleships, 4 cruisers, nearly 200 aircraft (most of them on the ground) and killed over 2400 men.

The quote 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve' has been widely attributed to Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Imperial Japanese Fleet, immediately after the attack. Although the Japanese commander was depicted as uttering those lines in films such as Tora! Tora! Tora! or Pearl Harbor there are no official documents or communications in which he uses that phrase.

Another more timely and prophetic quote from Yamamoto I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success. As it turned out, the decisive Battle of Midway that would severely limit Japan's Naval power for the rest of World War II took place exactly 6 months after Pearl Harbor.