Samuel Billison, a member of a group of Navajo Marines who invented a military code based on the tribal language to confound the Japanese during World War II, died Wednesday of a heart problem, according to the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Ariz. His age was not immediately known.
The Navajos -- called the Code Talkers -- used the code and their native language to communicate troop movements and orders, developing a secret vocabulary that renamed military armaments and equipment using rough equivalents in Navajo.
Airplanes became birds, ships became fish and wespons were named after various items. For example, the word "bomb" was replaced by the Navajo word for "egg."
Billison was a longtime president of the Code Talker Association, and also served on the Navajo Nation Couincil.
Billison joined the Marines after high school in 1943. He said he was sent to test as a code talker when he completed boot camp and the Marines realized he was fluent in Navajo and English.
Billison and his fellow code talkers were not allowed to discuss their work when they returned home after the war. The Defense Department first released information on the code talkers in 1968.
* * * A QMS Deezyne * * *