ONCE UPON A TIME: HISTORY AND FACTS

History: Eastern Band helped thwart German intelligence during height of WWI By Jim Buchanan Twenty years ago, a film came out that made a brief splash before quickly being lost in a Hollywood summer dominated by franchise films (installments of the Spiderman, Harry Potter, Men in Black, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series all landed that year). The film was called “Windtalkers,” and it was based on the real-life saga of Navajo code talkers in World War II’s Pacific Theatre. Navajo language was the basis of an unbreakable code Japanese intelligence could never crack, making communications between native Navajo speakers regarding military movements and dispositions safe and invaluable to the American war effort. The movie was something of a flop not because of the story but because of how it was told. At the time critic Roger Ebert said “filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches, while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage,” despite being based o...