how did the code talkers develop the original version of the Navajo code?

Question

mahoganie.carson · Answer

Welcome to Open Study ^_^
Philip Johnston was a son of missionaries who had grown up on the Navajo Nation. He had the idea at the start of WWII when he was living in LA and working as a engineer. He brought the idea to Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet. The US army and the British had used the code idea in WWI with Choctaw and Cherokee. There was a program at the same time in 1942 with Basque and Comanche and Meskwaki as well. 
Johnston and the first 29 created the code at Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, California in May 1942. It was modeled on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. To save time during battle words were used to substitute for common nouns as well, for example a turtle for a tank.