MovieChat Forums > Windtalkers (2002) Discussion > Protect the Code - Baloney

Protect the Code - Baloney


The premise for the relationship between the American sergeant (N. Cage) and the Navajo codetalker (A. Beach) is that the Marines and Navy could not let a code talker get captured because that would give the Japanese the code. So the white Marine was first a bodyguard but possibly an executioner in the event of imminent capture.

This idea is totally wrong. First of all the windtalkers did not have bodyguards. It was the Japanese American translators and interrogators who needed protecting from American soldiers and Marines who might kill them just for being 'dirty Japs' no matter what uniform they wore. The protection the interpreters got increased the closer they got to the action. In the rear area they had one guard to protect them from harassment. By the time they got right up with an infantry company they got four guards to keep their own side from killing them 'accidentally'.

No one on our side wanted to kill the code talkers so they did not need guards. Capturing a code talker or two would not have helped the Japanese very much. They would have had to train several thousand code-listeners in first the Navaho language. A difficult thing to do, given the no one in Japan knew the Navaho language in the first place. These code listeners having mastered Navaho would then have to learn the code itself plus American radio and fire control procedures. Then the Japanese would have to post these men throughout their own front line units. EVen then, without copies of American military maps, they would not understand the coordinates and locations like landing beaches designated by English language code names (e.g. Red Beach) or the codes for the different units (a regular military code, not part of the Nahaho code).

The upshot is that the code was never in any real danger of being broken and made useless. The code talkers were in personal danger from serving right with the front line soldiers. That danger came from the enemy, not our own side.

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I didn't expect this to be a true story, but then again I'm not sure why anyone would. The plot is obvious and predictable, and the treatment is fairly cartoonish. The battle scenes are a weird mix of the realistic and unrealistic. We see graphic gore, but the constant explosions don't seem to match the armament they're supposed to be, Americans are constantly shooting six Japanese in six seconds, and the "fake prisoner" ruse is so completely unbelievable it takes you right out of the film.

The battle scenes unfold illogically, somewhat like a game. And I wouldn't be able to count how many people Cage wastes in this film, it's like Arnie in Commando.

The subject matter is interesting, I like seeing native Americans depicted in a positive light, and I suppose you can admire how Woo stages his pyrotechnics. But it's too bad Hollywood never trusts just showing something more understated and truthful.

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Good info, Georgegauthier. Thanks for sharing.

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the OP is wrong - I just got back from a mission trip to the Four Corners where we met with a veteran code talker from WWII. He confirms that they *did* have bodyguards for that exact reason. He had seen this movie and said that it did a good job of representing what the times were like and how that relationship worked.

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The Marines deny the orders were given, but some claim that they were given those orders.

True or not, the "premise" was around before the film, as is evinced by its conclusion in this statement given by New Mexico senator, Jeff Bigaman in 2000:

"The Navajos were second-class citizens and were discouraged from
using their own language; and
They were living on reservations, as many still are today, yet they
volunteered to serve, protect, and defend the very power that put them
there.
But the Navajo, a people subjected to alienation in their own
homeland, who had been discouraged from speaking their own language,
stepped forward and developed the most significant and successful
military code of the time:
This Code was so successful that military commanders credited the
Code in saving the lives of countless American soldiers and the
successful engagements of the U.S. in the battles of Guadalcanal,
Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard
Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, ``Were it not for
the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.'' Major
Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the
first 48-hours of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800
messages, all without error;
This Code was so successful that some Code Talkers were guarded by
fellow marines whose role was to kill them in case of imminent capture
by the enemy;
and finally,
It was so successful that the Department of Defense kept the Code
secret for 23 years after the end of World War II, when it was finally
declassified.

as collected from the Congressional Record by the Federation of American Scientists:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_cr/s041200.html



To add a wrinkle, the version Bingaman has on his website omits the mention of the orders to kill: http://bingaman.senate.gov/features/codetalkers/legislation.cfm

Perhaps someone corrected him?


Whatever the facts of history, I think we can all agree this was a terrible film.

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It really doesn't matter if the historical FACTS defies your "logical thinking". Marines had, in fact, ORDERS (it's hard for someone who hasn't served to probably understand what those actually mean) to kill their CodeTalkers in the event of imminent capture - and that's ALL there was to it.

The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

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Well personally, I'd rather be shot and killed quickly by a fellow Marine and be captured and tortured.

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