To decipher a message coded by the Navajo Code Talkers, the recipient first translated the Navajo words into English, and then used the first letter of each English word to decipher the meaning. Because different Navajo words might be translated into different English words for the same letter, the code was especially difficult to decipher.  For example, for the letter "A," the Code Talker could use "wol-la-chee" (ant), "be-la-sana," (apple), or "tse-nill" (ax).  Some military terms that had no equivalent in Navajo were assigned their own code word.  The word America, for example, was "Ne-he-mah" (Our mother).  Submarine became "besh-lo" (iron fish).

Military commanders credited the Code with having saved the lives of countless American soldiers and with the successful engagements of the U.S. in the battles of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.  At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, had six Navajo Code Talkers working around the clock during the first forty-eight hours of the battle. Those six sent and received more than 800 messages, all without error.  Major Connor declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."