Michael Hillegas DAR enjoys Code Talkers presentation

The Michael Hillegas Chapter, NSDAR enjoyed an informative program about the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II at the group's most recent meeting.

The meeting, held on Saturday, February 23, 2019 was at the First Baptist Church in Harrisburg. Regent Janice Hall opened the meeting with the rituals.

Guest speaker Lola Degroff presented the program, "Navajo Code Talkers of World War II".

Originally, 29 Navajo code talkers who were fluent in both Navajo and English were recruited by the United States Marine Corps. They developed new complicated codes using only the first letters from the Navajo words to create English words.

The enemies could not translate the new codes because the short English codes were only memorized and never written. The phrases were spoken and transmitted in Navajo; they had no indication of the real meaning of the transmissions. When spoken and received code by the Navajo code talkers, the Navajo words sounded garbled making it more impossible for enemies to translate. Messages using the code were very short and could be transmitted in 20 seconds. Other means of communication took as much as 20 minutes and could be broken by the enemy. In 1992 the Code talkers were honored for their service.

Guests attending were Lola and James Degroff, Gary Hall among others.

DAR members attending the meeting were Charlotte Mathis, Debbie Fromm, June Vangampler, Myra Mauterer, Sarah Drone., Shelia Albright, Karen Vinyard, Sue Perina, Joy Richey, Candy Evans, Lisa Thomas, Janice Hall, Sharon Tanner, Sharon Pyle and Dolores Payne.

The Michael Hillegas Chapter meets the third Saturday morning of each month at 9:30 a.m. at the First Baptist Church Education Building in Harrisburg. Guests are welcome.