The Long Term Impact

With the Code Talkers and their codes’ key role in the Pacific Campaign, the threat of American forces on Japanese soil and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pressured Imperial Japan into unconditional surrender in August of 1945. Later, Code Talkers would be used in the Korean War with almost 800 Navajos serving for the same purpose in the pacific. After their service, Code Talkers were sworn to secrecy in case any need for them arose again. Eventually, proper recognition was bestowed upon them after the code's declassification in 1962 with US President Ronald Raegan declaring August 14th National Navajo Code Talker Day in 1982. Eighteen years later in 2000, President Clinton signed an act into law to award Code Talkers who had served with medals for their service. Without their sacrifices, history may have been filled with more tyranny than needed.

The effort and dedication the Navajo Code Talkers had for their duty and country clearly showed in the results of their work. The code that they had devised in 1942 had been the decisive factor for American ground assault campaigns in the Pacific against the Imperial Japanese, if their work had been substituted with older protocols and implacements the same results would never have been achieved.  Major battles in the Pacific would have been won by Imperial forces, battle casualties and deaths would have been greater, and efforts to secure American communications would have been futile. The Navajo Code created and developed by the original 32 Navajo Code Talkers was the key factor to American victory over Imperial Japanese forces for the battles of strategic islands in the South West Pacific, paving the way for American and Allied forces to win the war in the Pacific either through the use of atomic weaponry or by amphibious invasion of the Imperial Japanese mainland.