AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

Arizona celebrated V-E and V-J Day along with the rest of the country. But as the veterans started coming home, it was an Arizona senator who helped lead the charge to make sure there was a place for them.

Today the Navajo Code Talkers are one of the most famous stories to come out of the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. However, following the victory they helped come to fruition, they were all sworn to silence and languished in obscurity for more than two decades before that story was finally told.

For the Marine Corps, the nightmare scenario was a Navajo code talker falling into the hands of the enemy. However, for the code talkers themselves, an equally grim prospect was being mistaken for the enemy by their fellow Marines.

The Navajo code premiered at Guadalcanal in 1942, and soon proved its worth as it went from island to island, wherever there was combat. And with it went the code talkers themselves, who had to survive everything the Japanese could throw at them.

Chester Nez In 1942, 29 men were locked in a room and told to come up with a code the enemy couldn’t break. The result would be an unbeatable encryption that sounded to outside observers like a cross between gibberish and random noises. But now came the tricky part - teaching the code to hundreds of men who needed to commit it to memory.

It turns out that Navajo is an incredible rich and astoundingly complicated language, which made it perfect to become the secret weapon of the Allies in their fight against the Japanese in the Pacific.

As fighting men from across America marched off to fight in World War II, they were either joined or supported by two groups who made lasting impacts on ending the conflicts - women and Amerindians.

During World War II, more than a few Arizonans left their marks on the battles raging across Europe and in the Pacific. A Marine from the state would even be captured in one of the most iconic war photos of all time.

January has not been kind for the podcast schedule - and now it’s taken out my voice so I couldn’t release this week’s episode on time.

As World War II erupted halfway across the world, back in Arizona, thousands were asking the same question - what can I do? From rationing to finding people to pick cotton, it turns out they could do a lot.

Even as the camps for Japanese Americans were going up, plans were in the works to have them move permanently away from the West Coast. By early 1945, thousands had left for opportunities in education, the workforce, and even the armed services while the slow-moving legal system finally decided that there was no good reason to lock up loyal U.S. citizens.

Life in a concentration camp, even an American one, was never going to be pleasant. But the tens of thousands of imprisoned Japanese Americans found ways to get through the day, embracing the philosophy that the situation just couldn’t be helped.

Starting in March 1942, 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed from the West Coast and sent to 10 camps where they would ride out the majority of the war. Two of those camps were located in Arizona, introducing tens of thousands of people to the rigors of living in the desert … without the option for leaving.

Even in the decades before the 1942 executive order to remove them all from the West Coast of America, life for Japanese Americans in Arizona wasn’t easy. And it only got worse when literal bombs started flying.

After their daring breakout on the evening of December 23, 1944, the 25 escaping German POWs tried various methods to get to freedom. They would be hampered by things like rain, cold, patrols, wary citizens, cactus and a dry river bed, ultimately resulting in all 25 being back in custody just over a month after breaking out.

Starting in 1943, 3,000 German prisoners of war, mostly naval men, would be held in a POW camp at Papago Park. In 1944, 28 of those deemed to be troublemakers discovered a blindspot in their compound and set upon an audacious plan to break out and make a run for Mexico.

Starting in 1943, thousands of German and Italian POWs were shipped to Arizona. They would leave a mostly honorable legacy while the Sonoran Desert and the mountains of Flagstaff would leave a lasting impression on them.

World War II had the effect of making Fort Huachuca into a a central gathering place for Black men and women serving in the U.S. Army. Their experience ran parallel with their white counterparts, except for a notable undercurrent of segregation, prejudice, and racism. And those same undercurrents would result in a minor war breaking out on the streets of Phoenix on Thanksgiving Day 1942.

After Pearl Harbor, the military turned Arizona into one giant training ground. And many of the soldiers who funnel through the state chose to stay in the desert, chaining the course of Arizona history for decades to come.

Most people connect Pearl Harbor to the USS Arizona that sunk beneath the waves on December 7, 1941. But in the months following the surprise attack, Arizona would have a surprising connection to those who had help plan that most infamous of dates.

Though it was probably not on his mind at all, Adolph Hitler changed the course of Arizona’s history when he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. One ramification that would unfold a year and a half later was one of the last great instances of Amerindian resistance to the U.S. government.

In 1934, Arizona’s hostility toward California and its water demands reached it zenith, culminating in the governor sending troops and a “navy,” to stop that most heinous of things - a dam across the Colorado River.

The Hoover Dam would be finished two years early, but that feat took a lot of planning, coordination, and sacrifice - and a heavy toll on the men building the project.

It’s time to talk about water once again. In this case, we discuss all the preparation that went into one of the biggest public works projects of the 1930s that just so happens to sit between Arizona and Nevada.

The U.S. Army started to reorganize and consolidate in the 1920s. At Fort Huachuca this meant an end to its time hosting not only the 10th Cavalry and 25th Infantry Buffalo Soldiers, but the last remaining Apache scouts as well.

When they weren’t patrolling the border or invading Mexico, the Buffalo Soldiers had lives filled with Army drills, band concerts, baseball games, dances with eligible women and, oh yeah, all kinds of discrimination.

We continue our deep look into the service of the Buffalo Soldiers with one of the main highlights of their time in Arizona - protesting the border and invading Mexico.

The Buffalo Soldiers left quite a legacy, both in general and in Arizona. Along the border town of Naco, part of that legacy is still standing - and some folks want to keep it that way.

This is the story of how one Chinese man became a legend at Fort Huachuca.

Before it became the very model of a modern Army installation, Fort Huachuca started out as the temporary Camp Huachuca, a remote, frontier outpost that was simply struggling to hold on.

In 1930, a young man from Kansas working in Flagstaff noted an object move 3.5 millimeters between two photographic plates. And our understanding of the Solar System has never been the same.

While you can’t talk about Percival Lowell without mentioning his views on Mars, you also have to discuss his other great obsession - finding the hypothetical ninth planet hiding on the fringes of the solar system.

During the first two decades of its existence, Lowell Observatory furthered both one of the great astronomical misconceptions and breakthroughs of the 20th century.

In May 1894, a rich, globetrotting, and brilliant mathematician from Boston came to Flagstaff for a special purpose - finding evidence of life on Mars.

The Great Depression is a historical period best told through on-the-ground stories. Here is just a smattering of what it looked like in Arizona.

In 1932, FDR pledged to bring his “New Deal” to the American people. You can debate its effectiveness, but in Arizona in general and Phoenix in particular you can see remnants and effects of the New Deal programs to this very day.

Delays in the present, but plans for the future!

During the 1930s, millions of migrant workers and their families fled from the Dust Bowl. Tens of thousands of them drifted into Arizona, lured by the promise of plenty of work in the cotton fields. These workers would find themselves taking the place of displaced Mexican workers, both economically and socially.

In October 1929, the bottom fell out of the stock market, and three of Arizona’s famous 5 C’s each took massive hits in the ensuing depression. But the downturn didn’t just hit people’s pocketbooks; in the case of many Mexican nationals or Mexican-Americans, it affected their ability to live in Arizona at all.

In 1930, thousands of Arizonans came together to celebrate the official dedication of the unique Coolidge Dam. It was the culmination of years of work to get a dam on the Gila River, but its legacy remains a bit complicated. But, hey, at least it gave us one really funny joke.

After getting through the House and the Senate on unanimous votes, the bill to build the San Carlos Dam had to clear its final obstacle - the potential bill killer known as "Silent Cal."

After more than a decade of trying and only getting a portion of the San Carlos project funded, Hayden and his allies set their sights on one big push to get the San Carlos Dam funded. The first step? Getting it through the Senate.

Throughout the 1910s, Carl Hayden and others failed to get their storage dam on the Gila River. However, in the early 1920s they were able get a smaller reclamation project approved. Too bad it would do little, if anything, to help the water-strapped Maricopa and O’odham living on the Pima Reservation.

In which someone suggests a radical idea - actually collecting hard data on and documenting the impact of upstream diversions to the O’odham living along the Gila River.

The end to the decades-long saga of trying to divide the Colorado River.