Philip Johnston (code talker)

Philip Johnston (1892 - 1978) proposed to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) the idea of using the Navajo language as a Navajo code to be used in the Pacific during World War II.

Philip Johnston was born in Topeka, Kansas on September 17, 1892, the son of a missionary, William Johnston. The elder Johnston brought his family to Flagstaff, Arizona on September 16, 1896 to serve Navajos residing on the western part of the Navajo Reservation. Philip's father was able to intervene and defuse a potentially violent clash called "The Padre Canyon Incident" which revealed underlying tensions between Navajos and Anglos involving livestock rustling. For resolving that incident in a peaceful manner, local Navajo leaders allowed Reverend Johnston to build a mission 12 miles north of Leupp, Arizona. After that incident, Philip's father worked to expand the boundaries of the western part of the Navajo reservation in order to resolve livestock rustling disputes around which developing tensions were generally centered.

On the reservation, young Philip learned to speak Navajo while playing with Navajo children. In 1901 Philip traveled to Washington D.C. with his father and local Navajo leaders when they spoke to the newly appointed President Theodore Roosevelt to persuade him to add more land to the Navajo Reservation via an Executive Order. Philip was the Navajo/English translator between the local Navajo leaders and President Roosevelt.

Around 1909 or 10, Johnston attended the Northern Arizona Normal School (NAU archive: November 7, 1970 interview, page 28), now "Northern Arizona University", where he earned an academic degree. In March 1918 he enlisted in the U.S. Army's 319th Engineers, where he received a reserve commission. Between March and September 1918 he trained in Camp Fremont at Menlo Park, California before being shipped to France as part of the AEF to participate in the Great War (NAU Archive). It is here that he may have heard about Comanches being used as code talkers by U.S. Army units.

Johnston attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles where he earned his graduate civil engineering degree in 1925. Afterwards he took a job with the city of Los Angeles water department. Though he worked in Los Angeles he maintained his social connections with the Navajo people with whom he grew up. He was working as a civilian in Los Angeles when the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. After the attack he had read of the U.S. Army using Comanches in their Louisiana field maneuvers to transmit military communications and began to think that the Navajo language could also be applied in this manner. He presented this idea to the U.S. Marine Corps and he was directed to present his proposal.

Johnston recruited four Navajos who were working in the Los Angeles shipyards, and arranged to demonstrate the utility of using the Navajo language to transmit military communications. The officer in charge of this demonstration was Communications Officer, Amphibious Force, Fleet Marine Force (FMF) Major James E. Jones USMC at Camp Elliot, San Diego and Commanding Officer; Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet General Clayton B.Vogel heard of the event and attended the demonstration. Initially Philip thought the Navajo language could be used unmodified to transmit military communcations, using conversational Navajo. Just before the actual demonstration started the Navajos received their samples of common military expressions they were to convey to each other. They informed the gathered personnel that in order to send the military messages they would have to use word and letter substitution methods to convey the messages. After some deliberation to agree upon which Navajo words would represent English equivalents the Navajos were divided into two groups and put into separate rooms, where field phones had been installed, at opposite ends of the same building.

At that point they transmitted the common military expressions they were assigned to be coded into Navajo and decoded into English, by verbally encrypting, transmitting and decoding the messages nearly verbatim from English, to Navajo and back into English. Philip indicated that this Camp Elliot exercise revealed limitations to using conversational Navajo for military communications and that he was inspired to use the letter and word substitution methods to encrypt Navajo. On the other hand USMC documents indicate that, it was after this demonstration, when they were independently investigating the logistics of using the Navajo language as a code, that it was Bureau of Indian Affairs personal who stated that a coding system for Navajo had to be created.

General Vogel was so impressed with the Camp Elliot demonstration that he asked the Commandant of the Marine Corps to recruit 200 Navajos. But Vogel was only given authorization to recruit 30 Navajos, under a pilot program status to investigate the feasibility of this proposed program with actual Navajos. On the morning of May 4, 1942, twenty nine Navajo recruits boarded the bus at Ft. Defiance, Arizona, were transported to the induction center at Ft. Wingate, New Mexico, and after lunch were transported overnight to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego(MCRD,SD) for administrative in processing, then to start their seven weeks of standard recruit training (McClain 2001, 39). Upon completion of recruit training the first, all-Navajo platoon 382 graduates from MCRD, SD on June 27, 1942, where they were immediately ordered to report to Camp Elliot for about eight weeks of basic communications training and to develop a code based on the Navajo language (McClain 2001, 45-46,58). As for developing the code the Navajos were guided by a cryptographic officer under the command of now, Lt. Col. Jones in the basics of employing letter and word substitution encryption methods in the formulation of the code (McClain 2001, 50-51). Shortly after the beginning of this project three additional Navajo Marines were added to the program and together the 32 Navajos worked to develop the code and their stay in Camp Elliot ended in the latter half of August 1942 (McClain 2001, 54, 58).

Based upon the successful training of the pilot talker program on 25 August 1942 the authorization to fulfill the recruitment of 200 Navajos commences and Marine units "were asked to submit recommendations relative to the number of Navajos they could usefully employ" (8 April 1943 Memorandum).

After training one group of 13 were assigned to the 1st Marine Division, a second group of 16 were assigned to the 6th Marines and the 2nd Signal Company of the 2nd Marine Division (McClain 2001, 60-61). Three individuals were retained stateside to recruit and train Navajos to become code talkers. The first group of Navajo code talkers arrive at Guadalcanal on September 18, 1942 near Lunga Point (McClain 2001, 66). The second group arrived with the 6th Marines on January 4, 1943 and relieved the 1st Marine Division code talkers (McClain 2001, 88) and then participated in the latter stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal (Rottman 2002, 131).

After the USMC officially instituted the "talker" program Johnston asked the USMC for a special dispensation to serve in the Navajo Code Talking Program as a Staff Sergeant. His request was granted and he served as a school administrator for the "Confidential" program on September 22, 1942. By October 26, 1942 Staff Sergeant Philip Johnston USMCR and Corporal John A. Benally USMC, one of the three stateside code talkers, were sent out to recruit more Navajos to join the program. From late October through November 1942 they recruited Navajos through out the western portion of the reservation, until they were recalled back to Camp Elliot. On 7 December 1942 the Navajo Communication School at Camp Elliot began formal lessons under Johnston's the supervision (22 February 1943 letter). Navajo recruits trickle in and go through standard Marine Corps boot camp, where upon after graduation they are sent to Camp Elliot. The next all-Navajo platoon to go through boot camp is Platoon 297 in March 1943 at MCRD,SD (McClain 2001, 78).

Johnston may have proposed the idea of using the Navajo language to encrypt USMC tactical communications, but he was not yet on active duty with the USMC to be present during its creation by the first 29 + 3 Navajos who created the vocabulary with guidance by a USMC cryptographic officer.

Not much is known of Johnston after World War II. He created a non-profit organization to raise college money to send Native Americans to college during the 1950s, after five years it was dissolved. At the initial reunion of the Navajo Code Talkers in 1968, Mr. Johnston may have inadverdently been responsible for the code being de-classified. The Navajo Code was kept secret since the end of WWII until a group known to raise money for the children of Marines killed in action decided to honour the Navajo Code Talkers at a scholarship banquet in Virginia. At the event Mr. Johnston called himself the inventor of the Navajo Code causing the many Navajo Code Talkers in the room to disavow his statement almost breaking into physical altercation. Inevitably the Navajo Code Talker Association disavowed Mr. Johnston and ended their relationship.

A friend of his indicated he spent a lot of time in Phoenix, Arizona in his later years. Philip Johnston died in 1978.

ee also

*Navajo Nation
*Navajo
*Code talker

References

* Johnston, Bernice E. "Two Ways in the Desert: A Study of Modern Navajo-Anglo Relations". Catalina Stations, California: Published by Socio-Technical Publications. 1972.
* McClain, Sally. "Navajo Weapon: The Navajo Code Talkers". Tucson, Arizona: Rio Nuevo Publishers. 2001.
* Rottman, Gordon L., "U.S. Marine Corps World War II Order of Battle: Ground and Air Units in the Pacific War, 1939-1945". Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. 2002.

External links

* http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-4.htm Dept. of Navy "Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary"
* http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm Dept. of Navy "Navajo Code Talkers: World War II fact Sheet"
* http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/exhibits/indigenous_voices/navajo/codetalkers.html Northern Arizona University Special Collections, regarding Navajo Codetalkers
* http://www.nau.edu/library/speccoll/exhibits/sca/collect/nauarc/hist.html Northern Arizona Normal School Brochure
* http://www.nau.edu/library/speccoll/index.html To see some of the "Philip Johnston photograph collection" type the name "'Philip Johnston".
* http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2007/05/26/news/20070526_front%20page_1.txt "Padre Canyon Incident:" This is human interest story from AZ Daily Sun, but other serious documents exist