Japanese Held One American Navajo 3 Years for Code He Never Knew
A Japanese officer pressed play, and the American prisoner heard his own language coming out of the machine — and could not understand a single word of it. Bataan, April 1942. Sergeant Joe Kieyoomia of the 200th Coast Artillery, a Navajo from Shiprock, New Mexico, walks out of the jungle with 76,000 others. The guards study his face, his paperwork, and decide he is Japanese American — a traitor. He is beaten for two years for insisting on the truth about who he is. Then Japanese intelligence finds his file. The US Marines are sending messages no cryptanalyst in Tokyo can touch, and one sergeant from New Mexico looks like the way in. They play him the recordings. They put the words in front of him. He translates them honestly, and what he hands the Imperial Japanese Army is a list of animals. Stripped in the snow at 27 degrees. Crippled. 43 months in captivity for a secret nobody had ever told him existed — and the code held to the last day of the war. Subscribe for daily Pacific War stories ⚓️ / @pacificwarstoriess Like if the Americans who fought the Pacific deserve to be remembered. Comment below — where are you watching from? #ww2 #wwii #pacificwar #militaryhistory #pacificwarstories
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