What role did the navajo code talkers play in ww2?

The Navajo Wind Talkers were very instrumental in WWII using their Native American language to transmit codes the Japanese could not decipher. There were 400-500 Native Americans that served in the Marine Corps. Their job was to transmit secret tactical messages in the South Pacific Theater. The efforts of these men improved communications in the encryption at both ends of the message. It was sent by Navajo Wind Talkers in one area and received by another Navajo Wind Talker in another area of the front lines. Although we generally hear of code talkers in WW II, there was also a group in WW I from the Choctaw Native Americans. Other Native American tribes that helped with code talking were the Cherokee, Comanche, Choctaw, Lakota and Meskwaki.

The Navajo Wind Talkers were especially hard to decipher because of their complex grammar and the fact that at the time of WW II it was still an unwritten language. A code book was developed. Code talkers could encrypt a message at one end and decode it on the other end ten minutes quicker than the standard English message. When their various dialects, accents, syntax and tones were added into an already difficult language it is said that only people raised in that area could decode a message. It is generally agreed that without the code talkers the Marines would have never taken Iwo Jima.