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‘Windtalkers not an accurate portrayal of code talkers’
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Posted on May 31 2005
Navajo Code Talkers Association official photographer Kenji Kawano said Windtalkers did not completely tell the truth about the Navajo code talkers.
Kawano, who was on Saipan to attend last Saturday’s opening of the American Memorial Park Visitor Center, said the film portrayed the World War II code talkers as always having “bodyguards” with them all the time. He said this was inaccurate as the code talkers had to rely on themselves for protection against the enemy.
Kawano said the association of code talkers in the United States was initially ecstatic that they were finally being recognized in the movie but felt sad when certain facts in the Nicolas Cage vehicle were “Hollywoodized.”
Kawano was born in Japan but went to the United States in 1973 because he was drawn to the mystery and beauty of the Navajo Reservations. While there, he met Carl Gorman, one of the patriarchs of the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Kawano said his interest and the trust of the members resulted in him being appointed as the group’s official photographer.
He is on a three-day book signing for his book, Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers, which is on sale and displayed at the newly opened Visitor Center.
Kawano said he started his coffee table book in 1982, documenting through his vintage SLR cameras the members of the association. He said he also asked them if they could say at least a sentence or a paragraph about what they could recall during the war. The subjects would then provide him some notes about their experiences as code talkers.
He launched his book in 1990 and since then, Kawano said the book has been printed by over 15 publishing houses already.
Kawano said he could not count how many books have been printed since then. He said some of his subjects have already passed on but when he sees them in his book, he knows that they still live in the hearts of the people who read the book.
As of Monday this week, Kawano said more than 50 of his books have been sold at the Visitor Center. He was set to leave for Guam yesterday.
