[Military sub-plane] Compiled and arranged by Fredrich Lau
During World War II, both sides racked their brains to decipher each other's secret electricity, from the Battle of Midway to the Landings in Normandy, and the losing parties in the battle were planted on the secret electricity. Churchill once said of ciphers, calling them "geese that lay golden eggs but never call." This is enough to show the importance of ciphers. In 2002, Wu Yusen's war blockbuster "Wind Whisperer" was released, which gave us our first acquaintance with the code warriors of the Indian Navajo tribe. Today, let's start with the death of a veteran and look back at the glory days of these wind warriors.
In early October, a World War II-era Navajo veteran died
On October 8, 2017, a 94-year-old former Marine, David M. E. Patterson passed away. While paying tribute, let's use this article to review the following veteran's combat experience and the contributions of the "Wind Whisperers" to the United States and the entire Pacific Theater.
During World War II, it became increasingly important to encrypt the details of military exercises or combat operations with passwords for security reasons
Poster for The Wind Whisperer, which tells the story of Joe (Nicholas M.), a naval officer in the Battle of Saipan. Cage) and the Navajo Cipher (Adam. Beech) Adam's comradeship.
Faced with the repeated deciphering of codes, the Americans came up with a bold and clever idea: to use indigenous (Indian) dialects for the transmission of codes, so that even if the information was intercepted by the Axis powers on the European or Pacific battlefields, they could not decipher it. Of course, the use of dialects has also been adopted by our people's army.
Such an idea gave birth to the Navajo "Wind Whisperers", which made them the first minority intelligence unit in the U.S. military
These Indians served in the Army (to the European Theater), the Navy (pacific theater), and are of course known as soldiers serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. They landed on one island after another with their troops and fought a fierce repulsion operation with the Japanese troops guarding the islands.
Of course, the reason why so many Indians joined the army was not to involve them in direct fighting, but, as explained above, mainly to let them be responsible for communication.
These yellow-skinned Asian-faced recruits were soon recruited into the army to learn the Navajo code, and their super memory and ability to convey information also made them outstanding on the battlefield, which won the praise of American soldiers. There has been a scramble for Navajo recruits in some units.
With an Asian face, they can also pretend to be Japanese to confuse the enemy in the film
Veteran David. E. Patterson
Because it is a password, someone must decipher the current message after it is sent back to the base camp, translate the Navajo language into English, and then convert the command to the language and send it out. This seems simple, but for ordinary people, it is difficult to go to the sky. Because the Navajo language itself has no writing, it is only circulated within the Navajo people, and its meaning cannot be known without long-term training. The Navajo code was based on the Navajo language, and because the Navajo language itself has no military terminology, the new code is grouped with Navajo words and some new words. In this way, even people of the same race or foreigners who know Navajo understand the words inside and cannot understand the deeper meaning. Because it is extremely difficult to decipher, this code is also known as the "invincible code"
Here's an example from the Pacific Theater to illustrate how Marines requested artillery support:
1. The Navy warship sends a whisper to the Marine Corps' surveillance position
2. These scouts send orders to marines on the front line who are engaged in a fierce exchange of fire
3. The Wind Whisperer soldiers on the front line accept the message and then feedback important information such as coordinates to the surveillance position, and the surveillance position reports to the battleship
4. Battleships shell enemy positions
This also means that if one squad of Whisperers dies, another unit will have to take their place in battle, or the "secret communication" line will be interrupted.
These important ciphers became the key protection targets of the US military and the main target of contention of the Japanese army. The principle of the US military is to give priority to the protection of passwords, and these whisperers still throw themselves into the battlefield without hesitation. This is shown in the film, where, in order to protect the code, Cage has to pull out a grenade and throw it at him when Charlie, the Wind Whisperer, is captured.
According to statistics, a total of 25,000 Indians fought on the battlefields of World War II during World War II
Of these, 21,767 served in the U.S. Army
In addition, 1910 people joined the Navy and 121 served in the Coast Guard. This is because during World War II, Japanese submarines arrived near the U.S. coastline for reconnaissance or sabotage activities, for example, at the end of 1941, there were 9 Japanese submarines approaching the west coast of the United States, causing quite a stir.
In the end, 874 men joined the Marine Corps
A memorial sculpture of the Wind Whisperer is located in Windowstone, Apache County, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Reservation, the largest Indian reservation in the United States.
The sculpture is of a wind-whispering warrior in a kneeling position using a radio, and there is a brief introduction on the pedestal.
Patterson Jr., patterson, the elder's son, said his father was proud to be a member of the Wind Whisperers, but he rarely talked to his family about stories that took place on the battlefield. The reason for this may be because their existence involves military secrets, and the US military has considered that this code is still very useful after World War II, so the wind whisperers involved in it are required to keep it secret, even their families cannot say.
The existence of the Wind Whisperers was not made public until 1968. Although he remained silent about the story of the year, the veteran maintained close ties with other veterans until his health deteriorated
These veterans have their own organization
Despite being an Indian, Mr. Patterson is equally passionate about many of the american public's favorite activities.
His son put it this way: He loves to play bingo poker, loves baseball, loves the Los Angeles Dodgers, and has been a pitcher himself. He will do whatever he likes to the extreme
Indian veterans of that year participated in the commemoration of the Pacific Theater and the European Theater
Today, David. Patterson' qualified father as a distinguished U.S. Marine will always be remembered by the world, and we must not forget the great contribution of the Indians represented by him to the victory of World War II.
Finally, we found a passage from the Navajo veteran Peter. McDonald's speech at Naval Aviation Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, was carefully subtitled. He personally told how cruel the war was that year, please WeChat search and pay attention to the WeChat public account of the military and military sub-face to reply to "language", let the veterans tell you the real war.
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