Use of Basque
Captain Frank D. Carranza conceived the idea of using the Basque language for codes in May 1942 upon meeting about 60 U.S. Marines of Basque ancestry in a San Francisco camp. His superiors were 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.
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