Code Talkers

Code Talkers. Written by Susan Lennox.

密码传话兵。 苏珊·伦诺克斯 著。

Introduction. The date is February 19, 1945. A group of U .S. marines jumps from a landing craft. They struggle through the surf to the beach of Iwo Jima Island in the Pacific Ocean, not far from Japan. The marines are greeted by a hail of gunfire from Japanese forces. Unsure of what to do or where to go, the group's leader radios his commander. All will be lost if the enemy learns of the group's plans, but the Marines have a secret weapon. They have a team of Navajo radio men trained to transmit messages in a code no one else can understand.

引言。 这天是1945年2月19日。 一队美国海军陆战队士兵从登陆艇跳下。 他们顶着浪，艰难登上太平洋上硫磺岛的滩头，这座岛离日本不远。 日军的枪林弹雨迎面袭来。 领队不知该如何行动、该去往哪里，便向指挥官发去无线电。 要是敌人得知小队的计划，一切就都完了，但海军陆战队有一件秘密武器。 他们有一支纳瓦霍无线电小队，这群士兵受训用没人能破解的密码传递消息。

Philip Johnston's Bright Idea In 1942, World War II was raging across the globe. Many nations, including the United States, had been swept into battle. Communication was vital to keeping troops safe and ready to do battle. However, the US military had a serious problem. The enemy was getting hold of coded messages sent between units and decoding them. The Japanese were especially good at breaking US codes. In some cases, this led to many American casualties. Newspaper stories about the American military's radio code struggles caught the attention of Philip Johnston. Johnston had lived on the Navajo -Indian reservation as a child, and learned the Navajo language. He knew that few people outside of the tribe understood Navajo. He also knew that Navajo was a hidden language, meaning it was only spoken and had no written symbols. These features made it perfect for top -secret

菲利普·约翰斯顿的好点子 1942年，二战战火席卷全球。 包括美国在内，许多国家都被卷入了战争。 通讯对保障部队安全、维持战斗力至关重要。 但美军当时遇到了一个大麻烦。 敌军总能截获各部发送的密码电报，还能将其破解。 日军尤其擅长破解美军的密码。 有时候，这会造成美军大量人员伤亡。 报纸上报道美军密码通讯陷入困境的消息，引起了菲利普·约翰斯顿的注意。 约翰斯顿小时候住在纳瓦霍印第安保留地，学会了纳瓦霍语。 他知道，部落以外很少有人听得懂纳瓦霍语。 他还知道纳瓦霍语是一种隐秘语言，只有口语，没有文字符号。 这些特点让它完美适用于最高机密

Johnston contacted the military about using a code based on Navajo. They agreed to a test. If Johnston could show that using Navajo was a fast and secure way to transmit messages, the US military would try it.

约翰斯顿联系军方，提议使用基于纳瓦霍语的密码。 军方同意进行一次测试。 如果约翰斯顿能证明纳瓦霍语传递消息既快捷又安全，美军就会试用这套密码。

Mysterious messages Sending hidden messages dates back to ancient times. Early methods used steganography, a way of hiding or disguising a message. Only the sender and the recipient knew how the message was hidden. Sometimes messages were hidden with invisible ink, which seems to disappear once it is applied. Later, heat or chemicals would make the ink visible, and the message clear. Other steganographic methods were more unusual. One used by ancient Greeks involved shaving a messenger's head, tattooing words there, and then waiting for his hair to grow back and cover the message. The messenger then traveled to the recipient, who would shave his head to read the message. Most modern coding systems use cryptographic methods. With these methods, the message itself is not hidden, but its meaning is. Even if the message falls into the wrong hands, the reader must know the code in order to understand it.

神秘的密信 传递密信的历史可以追溯到古代。 早期的方法是隐写术，也就是把消息藏起来或伪装起来。 只有发送方和接收方知道消息藏在哪里。 有时候人们用隐形墨水藏消息，这种墨水写上之后就会隐形消失。 之后，加热或者用化学处理就能让墨水显现，读出清晰的内容。 还有一些隐写方法更特别。 古希腊用过一种方法：剃光信使的头，把字纹在头皮上，等头发长出来盖住文字再出发。 信使到达后，收信人再剃光他的头读取消息。 现代大多数密码系统都使用加密法。 这种方法不隐藏消息本身，只会隐藏它的含义。 就算消息落到敌人手里，不知道密码也读不懂内容。

At the start of World War II, American military cryptographers constantly changed coding techniques. They even tried using coded American slang, but over and over, their efforts failed. Many Japanese students had studied in the United States and knew American English. The Japanese codebreakers cracked messages almost as quickly as the Americans transmitted them.

二战初期，美军密码专家不断更换加密技术。 他们甚至试过给美式俚语加密，但次次都失败了。 很多日本留学生曾在美国学习，懂美式英语。 日军破译者破解消息的速度，几乎和美军发送消息的速度一样快。