Brilliant Minds Who Cracked Impossible Mysteries

Philip Johnston was a World War II veteran who proposed using the Navajo language for secure military communication. His idea reached the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942. Navajo speakers were recruited and trained to develop a coded vocabulary based on their language structure. The system proved extremely difficult for enemy forces to interpret and was never successfully broken. It played a key role in battlefield communication across the Pacific theater during the war years.