I have heard some stories about basque (northern spaniards) marines living in Idaho who volunteered to fight in the pacific, usually working as radio operators the same way as the navajo indians, using basque as a kind of secret code. Anyone knows anything about this? it would be very interesting to confirm these stories
Well Spaniards in WWII Fought on the side of many Countries, in many theaters and Battles, The French Resistance was made up of many Spaniards, Blue Division,+++. Captain Frank D. Carranza conceived the idea of using the Basque language for codes in May 1942 upon meeting about 60 US Marines of Basque ancestry in a San Francisco camp.[8][9][10] His superiors were justifiably wary. There were 35 Basque Jesuits in Hiroshima, led by Pedro Arrupe. In China and the Philippines, there was a colony of Basque jai alai players and there were Basque supporters of Falange in Asia. The American Basque code talkers were kept from these theaters; they were initially used in tests and in transmitting logistic information for Hawaii and Australia. On August 1, 1942, Lieutenants Nemesio Aguirre, Fernández Bakaicoa and Juanna received a Basque-coded message from San Diego for Admiral Chester Nimitz warning him of the upcoming Operation Apple to remove the Japanese from the Solomon Islands. They also translated the start date, August 7, for the attack on Guadalcanal. As the war extended over the Pacific, there was a shortage of Basque speakers and the parallel Navajo program came to be preferred. Code talker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Guerrillas of the Resistance The Spaniards who liberated Paris by Denis Fernández Recatalà translated by Harry Foster http://forum.stirpes.net/modern-cont...ted-paris.html Spanish Blue Division Military and Feldpost History.blue division troops "AXIS & FOREIGN LEGION MILITARIA Watch this YouTube - Panzerargentino's Channel
I have heard about Basque heritage associations in the U.S. and I am aware some serve din the USN but I have not heard of those who spoke their native language as a code.
