Soon after code talkers Thomas Begay and Johnny Manuelito were at their post on the top deck of the ship Begay later said I couldn't believe how ugly and forbidding that place looked It made me very uncomfortable and then something happened that confirmed that feeling Johnny and I had our radio net operating when a shell fired from the island bounced off just below where we were standing It bounced off the next deck below and exploded on the third bounce We would have been the first casualties of Iwo Jima if that shell had exploded on impact Things like that made you glad you performed your ceremony The first wave of US Marines hit the beaches at approximately 9 00 a m on February 19 1945 The island itself looked bleak Due to past volcanic activity the beaches were black sand The air was hot and humid day and night and the island reeked of rotten eggs from the sulfur released by active volcanic vents The danger however came from the thousands of Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island In the months leading up to the attack they had built a network of tunnels which joined underground concrete shelters Antitank mines were buried in the sandy slopes Every jumble of rock and brush held peepholes and gunports The Japanese had 800 positions from which to fire weapons Crossing any open space meant exposing oneself to gunfire This tiny island was one of the strongest Japanese defenses The struggle began when the US soldiers reached the beach They had trouble gaining traction in the volcanic ash soil An earthen terrace approximately 15 feet 5 m high blocked their way Vehicles bogged down on the beach Soldiers had to wade through the deep sand and up steep slopes carrying more
Corporal Henry Blake Jr of Fort Defiance Arizona and Private First Class PFC George H Kirk of Leuppe Arizona send messages in code in the Pacific Theater in December 1943 than 100 pounds 45 kg of gear At least they faced little resistance from the Japanese at first UNDER FIRE Then the Japanese attacked They had let the Marines reach the beach in order to spring a trap on them Marines caught on the beach had little shelter besides
their stranded vehicles and the bodies of their fallen comrades Still the Marines held the beachhead They had managed to land 30 000 soldiers and a mountain of supplies All those troops needed to communicate with each other and w commanders on the ships who could assist them by firing their huge guns on enemy positions But they could not let the Japanese understand their messages They needed radio operators who could quickly NUMBER UNKNOWN translate messages into and out of code It is hard to say for certain how many Navajos They needed the Navajo code talkers worked as code talkers in World War II Different The US ships sent waves of bombers recruiters had their own records Navajos who enlisted before May 1942 might have been over the island to hold back the Japanese tapped for the code talking program later It is Some of these planes failed to pull up in even more difficult to guess how many Navajos time and crashed into a mountain Between served altogether in every branch of the bombings more US troops tried to land military In many districts Navajos were listed on six waves of Marines would attempt to Selective Service records as white land on the island every five minutes The second wave included the first of the code talkers Some landing craft never reached shore Code talker Merril L Sandoval was in a landing craft that overturned after being hit by enemy gunfire He made it the beach but lost his radio equipment Those code talkers who did arrive with their radios had to carry everything across the ashy sand while under fire They in two man teams Soon the code talkers were reporting information to
their counterparts in other areas This system of linked code talkers was known as the Navajo Net The messages flew furiously Receiving mortar fire We have lost four radiomen and one telephone man Unable to estimate equipment damage as yet Need bulldozer on Green Beach immediately Receiving steady machine gun and rifle fire from 132B The code talkers were not fighting but that did not mean they were safe Shells and bombs exploded overhead Tanks smashed into the Japanese entrenchments Marines threw grenades wielded flamethrowers and planted explosives They made progress yard by yard with little shelter The code talkers worked among the chaos If they could not keep the radios up and working and send accurate unbreakable codes the battle could be lost They were a long way from home and in a battle that could help determine the fate of the world 15
