About 400 Navajo U.S. Marines in the Pacific in World War II totally dumbfounded the Japanese with little more than plain talk. The Navajos sent secret military messages that were impossible to decipher. Called "code talkers," they spoke over the radio in code in their native tongue, a complicated language that few people in the world outside of their tribe could understand. At Iwo Jima, six code talkers handled 800 messages. It was later said that were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.