ABOUT 10 surviving Navajo code talkers will return to the sites of two of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific during World War II.
The veterans will visit Saipan and Iwo Jima as part of a major historical film documentary on their invaluable contribution to America’s victory in the war.
“The trip will include seven to 10 code talkers who will visit Saipan, perhaps Tinian too, and Iwo Jima, and several other places in October-November,” Mike Gross, an attorney working for the Navajo Code Talkers Association, told Variety.
Gross said the project will be produced by Starbright Media Corp., which produced a five-hour prime time documentary on President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as commander of the Allied forces in Western Europe during the war.
The series, “The Eisenhower Legacy,” was hosted by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and was aired on the Disney Channel.
The Navajo film project in the Pacific would be called “American Outcasts, American Heroes: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers.”
It would highlight the return of the code talkers and their families to Saipan and Iwo Jima “where their unbroken code helped turn the tide of battle against the Japanese.”
Over 400 Native Americans belonging to the Navajo nation were deployed in the Pacific in 1944 to transmit coded top secret information to the U.S. military.
Their code was based on the Navajo language.
Gross said the documentary aims “to uncover the true story while these men are still alive.”
“As far as we are concerned, the Navajo code talkers did for the Pacific what the Enigma code breakers did for the European War,” Gross said.
MGM recently released its war movie “Windtalkers,” which is about two Navajo code talkers that fought in the Battle of Saipan.
