Wasn’t it fun as a child to make up codes when writing to your friends at school or even at home when you wanted to say something in secret? For instance, before typewriters, we would use the reverse alphabet system: Z=A, Y=B, etc. Then there was the Morse Code, which you had to learn first: Dot dash for A, dash dot dot dot for B. Then when you got to the typewriter, there was the Star for A and the Heart for B, etc. Get the idea?
The book, The WWII Chain Letter Gang, talks about the decoders, those famous Navajo Code Talkers who learned to write and decode many ALLIED codes. For instance, the Marines created an alphabet in which the first letter of a Navajo word would correspond with an English letter: the term for ant — WO-LA-CHEE —which represented the letter “A.” This tremendous code that they learned to communicate with each other consisted of 211 vocabulary terms, plus this alphabet. Over 450 men used this code that was speedily translated.
Thinking further, here’s something many of us did not know: There was a unit created in October 1942 officially known as MIS-X (Military Intelligence Service-X). This unit was able to send packages to POWs at their camps with hidden items that were of great use in their communication back to the government and in their escape. But in order to know if they received the packages, a code was developed. One or more of the men in each troop was taught this code as part of their initial and special training. If captured, the code would be used and hidden in their letters home to their friends and loved ones.
About those writers who needed to carefully hide the messages to their loved ones at home, the POWs knew to put a clue right up front in the date in exactly which letters contained a message. If the date were written out, i.e., September 24, 1942, then there was no code hidden. But if the date appeared as 9/24/42, the decoders knew to find and read their concealed information within their private words to their home. The decoders would steam open their notes, find the important message from the POW camp, re-seal the envelope and send the letter to its intended destination.
Children then and even nowadays would consider coded messages a game. How much fun is it to do this! Can you see the child giggling as he or she is writing their little love note? However, a soldier would use this code as a way to live. It was never meant to be a game; it was a lifeline. Now there were tears as he wrote his message.
Who, however, would know which people came in contact with these encoded messages first? The normal channels were followed. Censors out of the camp first. And if anything went askew, lives would be lost. Not only how the message was hidden was taken into consideration, but where and when was a huge concern of the writer.
Were it not for those trained in this sensitive encoding process, all hope of the POW might have been lost. Just think about the POW writing his message. He wanted himself plus his buddies to be saved. This was his very sensitive task.
Free of war countries and individuals also used coded messages throughout history, privately and commercially, for many years. The process was used by lovers who hid messages from parents and guardians and by businesses and trading countries to hide prices, products, and the like in competition. Many objects were also and often used to hide and decipher codes – wheels, tiny discs, typewriters, rolling pins, tattoos, internal objects, even shaved heads contained codes. Many codes were missed. They were everywhere you looked. Have you searched right here? (Some of us are lucky.)