Much More Than Code Talking – The Native Americans’ Role in World War II

 Lincoln Riddle

Native Americans made an enormous contribution to the World War II effort. Sadly, their involvement in the conflict is widely overlooked. Sometimes, they are portrayed as codebreakers and nothing more. This is not the case. Native Americans played a huge role in the war from its beginning to its end.
From the time the Europeans began settling in the New World, the population of the Native Americans began decreasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. The group’s population was seeing a little bit of a rise during the beginning of the 21st century. However, another large chunk of this growing population would fall prey to another harsh crime of the Western world – World War II. In fact, 44,000 Native American individuals participated in the war.