[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom can be heard off-camera.] Samuel Tso went to Charles H. Burke High School [Annotator's Note: at Fort Wingate near Gallup, New Mexico]. While there, the name was changed to Fort Wingate High School [Annotator's Note: now Wingate High School in McKinley County, New Mexico]. His home was in Arizona. He went to Wingate in 1937. His parents were very poor. He never saw his family for the four years he was in high school. In his senior year, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The following Monday, he went to class and only two of them showed up. All the rest had gone home. Most of them became the "First 29" [Annotator's Note: name for the first 29 Navajo recruits in May 1942 who developed the Navajo code] in the Marine Corps. Tso joined after high school. He thought the government would give him transportation back home, but they did not. He did not have a dime in his pocket. He was told to walk home and find a job. His suitcase was heavy. He found wire at a fence and made a sling to pull the suitcase. He did that for miles. He made it to the main highway, which is now US 40 [Annotator's Note: US Route 40, also called US Highway 40]. He hid his suitcase in an arroyo [Annotator's Note: gully formed by fast-flowing water in an arid or semi-arid region]. The suitcase is still there.

Samuel Tso changed his age to join the Marine Corps. He was 18 years old at the time and could not find a job. He went to the railroad station and asked if they were hired for common labor. They did not hire 18-year-olds. Later that day he went back and the guy asked him if he was 21 years old. He said he was and he got a job. While he was working there the draft board came around to check ages. In the morning he was 18 years old and in the afternoon he was 21 years old. He was drafted into the Marine Corps. [Annotator's Note: Tso listens to other veterans in the room talk about how they joined the Marine Corps.]

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera, in addition to Samuel Tso. The interviewer opens by asking all of them if they knew each other when they joined the US Marine Corps. An unnamed man answers him first.] They did not know each other. When the first reunion came about [Annotator's Note: after the war], they got to know each other. They associated with each other from then on, because in the service, they had been in different units of the Marine Corps. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the group to talk about the Navajo code and its originations and uses.] In 1941, after Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], and the beginning of the war, the Japanese went to the Philippines. The United States found that their own codes were being broken and messages were being decoded [Annotator's Note: by the Japanese]. A white man named Philip Johnston, whose father was a missionary on the Navajo reservation, suggested using the Navajo language. In February 1942, they tried it out by sending messages and it was accurate. The recruitment of Navajos began. The "First 29" went to boot camp. At Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] they developed the code that would be used. The code was used in many ways. They followed the English alphabet somewhat. There are more words in Navajo for each letter that mean many different things. Their birds [Annotator's Note: words for birds] became airplanes, their fish became warships, and their ground animals became war equipment. "Potato", in Navajo, became "hand grenade." The men who came in later, memorized the code. They were not allowed to use paper in any way. The Japanese found themselves hearing a different language and tried to find out who was using it. They got some captured Navajo soldiers in the Philippines and took them to Japan. They interrogated them. The Navajo understood the words but could not figure the code either. The Japanese could not break the code. The Army personnel who were Navajo [Annotator's Note: the captured soldiers] hated the code talkers because they were tortured by the Japanese over it. They want a museum in New Mexico next to Arizona to get down to the basics of the code and its history and uses. [Annotator's Note: The speaker references Tso being on Iwo Jima.] Major Howard Connors said that if were not for the code talkers, Iwo Jima would not have been won [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945 at Iwo Jima, Japan].

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera, in addition to Samuel Tso. The interviewer asks the group to talk about the Navajo code and its originations and uses. An unnamed man answers him first.] The code was based on the English language for the battlefield. They took that vocabulary, and each word was given a Navajo-coded name. All of it was memorized, making the Navajo code talker a walking machine. When translating an English message, they only used the coded name. The English vocabulary was never mentioned or used. There were over 600 words to memorize along with their counterparts. This is why it was so confusing to the enemy. After World War 2, all other codes have been decoded, but not the Navajo. The commanders only got the decoded messages. Other Navajo [Annotator's Note: who were not code talkers] could not understand the message even though they knew the words. This makes it hard to even describe it. [Annotator's Note: Another unnamed man joins in.] He served with the 3rd Marine Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] with other code talkers. They all communicated amongst themselves up the lines of battle order. On the battlefield, he went with the battalion commander and a radio man finding out what the front-line troops needed. The code talkers could not carry notes for helping transmit messages. The code was fast and easily used. When they landed on Bougainville [Annotator's Note: Bougainville campaign, part of the Solomon Islands Campaign at Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, November 1943 to November 1944], a Marine code message came in and it took an hour to decode it. The commander was discouraged and said to give it a code talker who resent it in Navajo. The decoding took less than five minutes. A company on the frontlines was reporting their position in the jungle. He had that job then for the rest of the war and it went well. He and his commander stayed in touch after the war. [Annotator's Note: Another unnamed man joins in.] They all have a little different story. The use of the code saved countless lives by eliminating the delays caused by conventional code use.

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera, in addition to Samuel Tso. The interviewer asks the group to talk about why they think the Navajo code was important.] Tso took the radio on his back and was lying flat on Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945 at Iwo Jima, Japan]. As soon as they got beyond the sand dunes, the Japanese shot his radio and rendered it useless. They had no radio communication then. He got a walkie-talkie. The firing was intense, and he had to lay prone in whatever cover he could find. Most of the time, the messages were requesting support by tanks or flamethrowers [Annotator's Note: ranged incendiary device that projects a controllable jet of fire]. The code coming in was decoded in his head and given to a runner or commander. Most of the time there were sergeants who used the runners. That is how they operated on Iwo Jima. He would jump into shell craters. The men on the north side of the crater would get shot. They were being seen from Mount Suribachi by the Japanese. The men on the south side were covered. The recon company [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance company] was told to cut Iwo Jima in half. They would send messages about how to fight. It was too fast for the Japanese to catch on. When they cut the island in half, the Japanese ran out of ammunition. The fighting was close and was mostly hand-to-hand combat. Some guys almost went nuts. Tso found it best to have the sergeants explain and give pep talks to the Marines. Gunnery Sergeant Fontaine [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] assembled them all and said they were no longer playing games. He told them to sleep with live ammo and to shoot and ask questions later. There were three Navajo code talkers there with him: Raymond Smith [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Corporal Raymond R. Smith, Senior] and Ambrose Howard. They were given lead. They dug in and watched for infiltrators on four-hour watches. One night, Smith threw a hand grenade at an incoming Japanese. If he had not done that, Tso would not be here today. That same night, the men up above them were all killed in the line. Only one corpsman [Annotator's Note: enlisted medical specialist in the US Navy who may also serve in the US Marine Corps] survived it and the Marines shot at him while he was trying to get back. Howard jumped up and said to stop shooting at him. He knew it was his friend by his voice. The corpsman made it in. Tso radioed in for dive bombers. The code was Navajo for "chicken hawk". The flew in and strafed the area to keep the Japanese down so the soldiers could move. The Japanese named the Corsairs [Annotator's Note: Vought F4U Corsair fighter-bomber], the "sound of death." When Tso heard them coming, he wanted to get up and cheer. It was critical to use the code to get that cover right that minute. The same for flamethrowers to burn the Japanese in the trenches. Tso can almost still smell the burning bodies.

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera. The subject, Samuel Tso. The interviewer asks a man off camera where he served during the war.] He served on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] and Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. He came into the Marine Corps in late 1943. On Saipan with the 2nd Marine Division, he was told the island had been secured the week before. He only took part in the mop-up work to clear the Japanese still hiding in the mountains. He was being used as a regular Marine by carrying the air-cooled machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun]. He did that for about three weeks. There were a lot of caves. They had a demolition team and used flamethrowers [Annotator's Note: ranged incendiary device that projects a controllable jet of fire] on them. The battle at Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945 at Iwo Jima, Japan] was going on. He then went to Okinawa. The United States thought about April Fool's [Annotator's Note: an annual custom consisting of playing tricks, practical jokes, and hoaxes] and 1 April they invaded Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945 at Okinawa, Japan]. When he was getting to the landing barge, they only got one clip of four bullets instead a full belt of ammunition. There were supposed to be 30 men in the landing barge, but there were only ten. They also did not have the usual machine guns. They did not land though and returned to the ship. They had faked the landing to fool the Japanese. The main force went in from the west side and cut the Japanese off from the mainland. On 14 August [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], he was in a hospital and heard yelling and car horns going off. A colored guy [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] ran in and said the war was over. He returned home to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. When he had first left San Diego, he weighed 130 pounds, when he returned he weighed only 90 pounds. He had problems with his ankles and got shots every three hours. He does not know what kind of shots. He went into the hospital in San Diego. He asked for a medical discharge later and had no proof of being in the hospital. He had to wait for his points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to accrue and then was discharged in 1946.

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera. The subject, Samuel Tso. The interviewer asks Keith Little about his experiences on Iwo Jima, Japan.] Samuel Tso interjects that Little did not see the flag raising [Annotator's Note: United States flag raised on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, 23 February 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945 at Iwo Jima, Japan]. [Annotator's Note: An unnamed man speaks at this point.] There were a lot of men on the north side [Annotator's Note: of the island] who did not even know about the flag raising. When you go into an invasion, you spend a lot of time on the ship and get tired of it. [Annotator's Note: Another conversation starts taking place in the background.] When he got to Iwo Jima, he was glad to get off the ship. On 19 February [Annotator's Note: 19 February 1945], he peered over the side and saw all kinds of ships and all kinds of firing going on. He could see planes getting shot out of the sky and falling into their landing area. His anxiety and fear were high, and he wanted on solid land. He got on land and found cover. He set up in a rock quarry where there was a hidden gun emplacement. Every time they moved; they were shot at. He had made three prior landings, and this was the most intense. The Japanese had tunnels all over and were moving. Every attack was frontal. They had to burn them [Annotator's Note: the Japanese troops] out of the caves. He was still satisfied to be on solid land despite everything. He wonders how he got through. You automatically do your work because what you do saves others. He was on the island for the entire battle. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks US Marine Corps Private First Class Bill Henry Toledo about his experience.] Toledo's division [Annotator's Note: 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] landed about three days after the initial invasion. He could not see the first flag raised because it was small. Then they put up a bigger one and he could see it from out in the ocean. The sand was deep and hard to walk on. The 5th Division [Annotator's Note: 5th Marine Division] was on the left and the 4th [Annotator's Note: 4th Marine Division] was on the right. They went up to the airfield. They did not know about the Japanese tunnels. The Air Force had been bombing and the Navy had been shelling for about 30 days and it did not bother them [Annotator's Note: the Japanese]. There were about 20,000 Japanese there. When the 4th and 5th landed, the Japanese came out. The Marines lost a lot of men. The island was supposed to be taken in one week, but it took 36 days. They secured the airfield and damaged bombers returning from Japan landed there. That saved a lot of planes and men. The Marines had a 33 percent casualty rate. Towards the end, there were three hills that all had concrete pillboxes on them connected to the tunnels. He advanced on Hill 632C with his 9th Regiment. The Japanese opened up. It was hard to hide because the jungle was gone. The commander laid down a barrage on the hill. He wrote the message, and Toledo used the Navajo code to send it to another code talker. He requested the artillery fire on the hill. Within five minutes, the barrage hit the hill. The Marines went in and destroyed it. They moved to the end of the island then. His regiment lost a lot of men at that hill.

[Annotator's Note: This interview is conducted with a group of Navajo veterans present, many of whom answer questions from off-camera. The interviewer asks them if any have returned to Iwo Jima, Japan. The subject, Samuel Tso, holds up a string of beads.] Keith Little went back to see Mount Suribachi [Annotator's Note: a terrain feature on Iwo Jima, Japan] on 23 February 1945 while Tso went to sleep in his foxhole. Towards morning, he was dreaming an Indian maiden came to him and told him if he wore some beads he would send him, he would return. His buddy kicked him awake and asked if he was having a nightmare. The dream was clear, and he remembers all the details. His parents were not educated, and he had no girlfriend back home. He got up and everybody went to breakfast. They returned and asked him what was wrong. Mail call came, but Tso never went because he never got anything. Al Mertz [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] came running back with a letter for Tso. There was something in it. There was no return address. The beads were in the letter. He put them on, and all fear disappeared from him. He stood up and said he was going home. The men laughed at him and said it was horseshit. He wore them anyway. Towards the end of securing the island, his unit was on the frontline. An officer told them their help was needed. He took them to a place between Hill 268A and Hill 268B they called Death Valley. They had to run across and look for machine gun nests. Tso took the first post. Around noon, Tso started running as ordered. As he ran, a whole bunch of Marines were shot down there and lying on top of each other. Some asked for help. The sergeant told them not to help them. They ran into a machine gun. They were told to just go back and report it. The rest of the Marines were running back with him to the hill. They made their reports. Tso's sergeant chewed him out for stopping to help the wounded. The stretcher-bearers preparing to go out were so scared their teeth chattered. Ambrose Howard sent a coded message for artillery, mortar, and rocket fire on the machine gun nests. Tso thought that must be what Hell looks like. Within 30 minutes, they stopped firing. The Marines were sent across the valley and received no enemy fire. Recon company [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance company ] was sent back to the ship. That was the happiest day of Tso's life. He hung onto to that beaded necklace. He has been wearing it for over 60 years. He is taking them to the Happy Hunting Ground [Annotator's Note: concept of the afterlife associated with some Native American peoples] with him.