From 1942 to 1945, some 400 Navajos had a pivotal role in Marine assaults in the Pacific. Using code that they developed in their own native language, they transmitted critical battlefield messages that the Japanese were never able to decipher.

The Navajo code talkers were so successful, in fact, that the project was classified "top secret" until 1968 in anticipation of its use in future conflicts, and the code talkers long went unrecognized for their wartime contributions.

Some surviving members of this group of elite veterans will appear at the University of Rochester during Native American Heritage Month. "Desert Warriors of the Pacific: The Navajo Code Talkers of WWII" features Samuel Billison, president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, who will talk about his experiences and demonstrate code talking at 8 p.m. Thursday, November 8, in Hubbell Auditorium of Hutchison Hall on the River Campus. The program is free and open to the public.

Billison enlisted before he completed high school and spent three years with the Fifth Marine Division. He served at Iwo Jima, where he was one of six code talkers who sent and received more than 800 messages, all without error, within the first 48 hours of the battle.

After the war he earned his college degrees, including a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Arizona. He has served as a principal and headmaster and school superintendent for Navajo schools in the Southwest. Currently, Billison is a councilman from the Kinleechee chapter of the Navajo Nation.

Presenting with Billison will be code talkers Albert Peaches and Samuel Smith. The idea to use the Navajo language for secure communications during World War II came from the son of missionaries to the tribe, who felt the extreme complexity of the language was perfect for creating undecipherable code. The Marine Corps agreed and recruited code talkers, fluent in both English and Navajo, from the Navajo reservation, which covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The first recruits, called "The Original 29," created the Navajo code after attending boot camp. They developed a code dictionary in which each letter of the English alphabet was represented by at least one or, in most cases, several words beginning with that letter, but with its Navajo equivalent. A transmission was composed of a string of Navajo words which the code talkers translated into English, using the letter of each English word to reconstruct the message. To ensure security, they memorized the entire original dictionary as well as subsequent updated versions of the dictionary.

The skill, speed, and accuracy of the code talkers earned them praise throughout the Pacific campaign. "Without the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima," said Major Howard Connor, communications officer for the Fifth Marine Division.

In addition to the dangers of war, the code talkers faced other challenges. Because of their skin color and facial features, which resemble the Japanese, the Navajos were often mistaken for the enemy and challenged by their own troops. Eventually, the code talkers were assigned bodyguards to accompany them in combat zones.

"Desert Warriors of the Pacific" is sponsored by the College, the Office of Minority Student Affairs, the College Diversity Roundtable, the Office of Student Activities, the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies, the Frederick Douglass Institute, the film and media studies program, and the history, linguistics, and anthropology departments.