At the beginning of World War Two, the United States Marine Corps asked members of the Navajo tribe to train as Code Talkers.

The Cryptologic Museum says the Marine Corps Code Talkers could take a sentence in English and change it into their language in about 20 seconds. A code machine needed about 30 minutes to do the same work.

The Navajo Code Talkers took part in every battle the Marines entered in the Pacific during World War Two. The Japanese were very skilled at breaking codes. But they were never able to understand any of what they called “The Marine Code.”

Eight members of the Choctaw tribe were the first code talkers. They worked in teams during World War One using their native language that was unknown in Europe. A Choctaw would translate a message in English into his native language and send it by radio. Another Choctaw would receive the message and change it back to English.

The Cryptologic Museum has many pieces of mechanical and electric equipment used to change words into code. It also has almost as many examples of machines used to try to change code back into useful words.

Perhaps the most famous is a World War Two German code machine called the Enigma. The word “enigma” means a puzzle or a problem that is difficult to solve.

The German military used the Enigma machine to communicate orders and plans. The United States, Britain, and the government of Poland cooperated in learning to read information sent by the Enigma. It took thousands of people and cost millions of dollars to read the Enigma information. However, the time, effort and money resulted in a quicker end to the war against Nazi Germany.