In a free program at the Chadwick Masonic Lodge in Coquille Sunday afternoon, Richard Bonham talks about his duty in the South Pacific in World War II as a Marine assigned with Bill Toledo, a Navajo codetalker. The Navajo language was used as a code during the war and was never broken. World Photo by Lou Sennick

In the Pacific theatre of action during World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps possessed a secret weapon - one that was not necessarily cutting edge, for its origins stretched back to an ancient culture - but one that was ingenious, nonetheless.

The secret weapon was a language - the language of the Navajo.

Throughout the battles for the Solomon Islands, Guam, Iwo Jima, Guadal Canal and countless others, members of the Navajo tribe became soldiers who relayed crucial information using their native tongue. The guttural language crackled and whispered day and night from the battlefield, over radio and telephone lines, to commanding officers - confounding codebreakers for the duration of the war.

Despite attempts by the Japanese, German, British and U.S. intelligence experts, the code was never cracked until it was declassified by the U.S. government decades later.

According to one North Bend resident, Richard Bonham, who worked side by side with a Navajo codetalker, the Navajo played a pivotal role in leading the Allies to victory in the Pacific.

Bonham told the story of the Navajo to almost 100 people Sunday afternoon at the Chadwick Masonic Lodge in Coquille.

At the outset of World War II, radio operators used various conventional codes - some created during the Civil War - to relay Allied and enemy positions, coordinates as well as the need for ammunition, equipment, medicine and food.

But mainly, "Our job was to let (headquarters) know where every single man was," Bonham said.

But there was a problem.

From time to time, the Japanese intercepted and deciphered the conventional codes, leading to ambushes, injuries and casualities.

"We knew full well that the Japanese could decipher our codes," Bonham said, who in 1943, was a radio operator for the Third Battalion of the Ninth Marines.

In 1942, the Marines decided to use the Navajo after Allied forces' success with other Native American tribes as codetalkers during the First World War. The Navajo language was selected because it was an unwritten language of extreme complexity.

Bonham first met Bill Toledo - who along with many other codetalkers hailed from Gallup, N.M. - just before the two shipped out to New Zealand in 1943. Unlike the other men, superior officers singled out Toledo, ordering the soldiers not to ask Toledo about the nature of his job.

"He was very quiet. We all thought he was Japanese and thought we had a Japanese interpreter with us," Bonham said. "I didn't know what in the world he did."

It was during the fight for Bougainville - the largest of the Solomon Islands - that Bonham discovered the significance of his young Navajo comrade's role.

During a heavy downpour, Bonham was unable to make sense of orders he received that indicated when and where American forces were to move forward.

"The Japanese had started landing and assaulting us," Bonham said. "We were not in a good position. We had to be more secure."

The orders had to be translated from code which could take 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Time was of the essence, and Bonham's commanding officer could see Bonham was struggling.

"We were in a deluge. Everything was soaked - including the maps," Bonham said.

As precious minutes slipped away, Bonham recalled his commanding officer simply saying: "Get me Bill."

Within minutes, Toldeo presented himself and a few minutes later he successfully sent and received the communiqués in his native language with another Navajo stationed at regimental headquarters.

"We could have lost the beach head," Bonham said. "Using the conventional message system I have no idea how it would have gotten through in time."

It was the speed and accuracy with which the messages were sent in Navajo that astonished Bonham.

"After all these months, I got an inkling as to who he was," Bonham said.

Even more amazing to Bonham was that Toledo did it all by memorization. As a radio operator who new the conventional codes, Bonham lugged around an iron box that contained a mechanism with a complicated set of twisting wheels with numbers and letters that decoded and encoded messages.

"I never saw him with papers of any kind, no references. It was all done by memorization," Bonham said.

Originally there were only 29 Navajo codetalkers who used 400 Navajo terms including numbers, letters and words. But because of their level of success, by war's end there were about 420 codetalkers and the list of terms had grown to about 600.

More than 60 years later, Bonham is still awestruck by the job borne on the shoulders of Toledo, then an 18-year-old, who Bonham said looked like a 15-year-old at the time.

"These were kids in their teens and early 20s who had no more than a high school diploma," Bonham said.

While it is true that the codetalkers were not to be captured under any circumstances, Bonham dismissed rumors that he was ordered to kill Toledo if there was no chance Toledo could escape capture.

"I never had any orders to do that," Bonham said, noting the only order he was given was not to ask Toledo about what his job was.

The two men parted ways after the war and lost track of one another. It was not until 1985 in California that the two were reunited at a reunion of the Marines who assaulted Iwo Jima. It was then Bonham learned of the struggles the codetalkers endured from the Navajo community after they returned home.

The U.S. Department of Defense had ordered the Navajo maintain a vow of silence about their role in the war. The Cold War had begun and military leaders did not know when - or if - the Navajo would be called upon again.

"They were sworn to secrecy and couldn't let their families or friends know," Bonham said. "When they got back to Gallup and other members of their tribe asked them what they did while they were in the military, they couldn't say."

Toledo told Bonham many in the community took the silence and unanswered questions as a sign they had done something to disgrace the tribe.

"They were given the cold shoulder, and humiliated," Bonham said.

It was not until former President George H. Bush honored the Navajo codetalkers in 1992 when the Navajo were released from their vow of silence.

Bonham said he speaks about the Navajo to remind people of the role they played in defending the country.

"The importance of the Navajo cannot be diminished," he said.