Daughter remembers late Navajo Code Talker

WINDOW ROCK

Barbara Billey remembers her late father, Navajo Code Talker Wilfred E. Billey, as being a humble man who learned the art of farming from his grandfather.

Barbara, 67, a retired librarian at the San Juan College Library, said her father helped design the code talker statue with a former student of his, Oreland Joe. She said the other code talkers were unenthusiastic of the idea, at the beginning, when he took a prototype of the clay statue to a code talker meeting in Gallup.

“Some wanted a contest,” she said, referring to the ideas her father’s brothers-in-arms wanted to encourage people to come up with a variety of other designs. Her father defended the prototype, she said. “Finally my dad asked them, ‘Who has time to do that? How old are we? We talk about it and we never get anywhere,’” Barbara said.

Today the statue by Joe and her father, made of bronze, is on display at the Navajo Nation Veterans Memorial Park. Encased in a steel square fence are the names of all the code talkers, etched into bricks, which surround the statue. A second code talker statue stands in front of the Gallup Cultural Center in Gallup. A third one at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Park in Phoenix.

In an article she wrote in Shiprock Magazine in 2014, she said her father went to Toadlena Boarding School. Her father attended schools in Shiprock and Farmington.

During a basketball game between Navajo Methodist Mission and Farmington High School, the game was interrupted by a loud sound of airplanes flying. She said her father told her how everyone ran outside to see what it was.

In 1942, she said school administrators were told at a meeting in Gallup to ascertain which of their Navajo students fluently spoke Navajo and English because the Marine Corps were looking for a few good Navajo men.

The program, according to the Central Intelligence Agency website, in 1942 was using the Navajo language to develop a code that would be used in World War II.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor, in 1941, prompted the U.S. to declare war on the Japanese Empire. Barbara said her father, along with 10 other young Navajo men, volunteered despite not knowing why he was answering the call. In March of 1943, she said, her father and the other young men, left for Santa Fe. Included in the group, she said, were Samuel Sandoval, David Tsosie, George Soce, Carl Todacheene, Robert Yazzie and Albert Henry.

The men would eventually form the second all-Navajo platoon, called Platoon 297. Of the 11, only eight passed physical exams, she said. Of the group she said that enlisted, only Sandoval remains alive today. Her father officially enlisted into the Marine Corps on March 26, 1943.

That’s when, she said, he found out he was going to become a radioman. The newly enlisted young Marine would camp along the Pacific Ocean at Camp Pendleton, California, a Marine Corps base.

Barbara said her father was not a member of the “Original 29” group but was in the second group. She said he was trained by John Benally and Johnny Manuelito, who were part of the first group who volunteered for the same program in 1942.

After his training, she said her father and seven other Navajo radiomen, were sent to the 2nd Marine Division in Wellington, New Zealand. On Nov. 20, 1943, an invasion of the Tarawa Island began. After a fierce and bloody battle with Japanese soldiers, she said, her father was sent in.

It was the first time he had seen dead bodies, she said. Along with the bodies of Marines, he saw personal photos they had with them. After 72 hours, the battle on Tarawa Island was over. He went on to see action in Saipan from June 15 to July 9, 1943, Tinian from July 24 to Aug. 1, 1944, Okinawa from April 1 to April 14, 1945, and Japan from Sept. 23, 1945, to Dec. 7, 1945. “I think what always amazes me about my father is, Navajo was his first language and he went to a far off place to a world war,” his daughter said of his accomplishments. “He was raised by his cheii and masani yet he came back and accomplished all these things in his life.”

Cpl. Wilfred E. Billey was discharged on Jan. 8, 1946, and was paid five cents a mile from Mare Island, California, to his home in Farmington, his daughter said. After returning home, he went on to complete high school and graduated from Navajo Methodist Mission School in 1948. He attended New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1952.

Eventually, he earned a master’s in education in 1964. He also received a doctorate of humane letters from the College of Santa Fe in 2002. For 40 years, Barbara said, he was an educator, eventually as the principal at Shiprock High School from 1976 to 1983, where Joe, designer of the Code Talker statue, was a student.

In 2001, she said her father advocated for fellow Marine and Navajo Code Talker David Tsosie when his name was taken off a list of honorees because his discharge paperwork did not list him as being a radioman. “After all these men received a medal, Mr. Tsosie didn’t get one and my dad was really angry because they went to school together, enlisted together,” Barbara said. “My dad actually ran into him in Saipan during the war.

“Shortly after my dad ran into him on Saipan, Mr. Tsosie was shot in the leg and shipped home,” she said. “My dad went to (Sen. Tom) Udall and (Sen.) Jeff Bingaman to advocate for Mr. Tsosie. The Marines and the committee finally got a medal for Tsosie.”

He died at the age of 90 on Dec. 12, 2013. Nearly seven years after his passing, she said the Marine Corps reached out to her asking if they could continue honoring his legacy and contributions to WWII. She said historian Zonnie Gorman, whose father was Navajo Code Talker Carl Gorman, informed her the National Marine Corps Museum, located in Triangle, Vrginia, was interested in exhibiting a seabag, a military bag that is used to carry clothing and other items, that belonged to her father.

“They saw the bag in a photograph in (Navajo Code Talker) Dean Wilson’s photograph collection,” she said. “Zonnie and I began discussing the uniforms, camouflage clothing and other paraphernalia my father had back in November 2019.”

The seabag, she said, has artwork that was created in Japan, somewhere in the region of Miyazak, located on the Island of Kyushu, which is where he trained before returning home. The seabag and the other items had been in storage.

She said her mother “made sure” all of his belongings and memorabilia were regularly taken out of storage to “air out.” “There is a hole in the bag because a pet goat was caught chewing it,” she said. “Otherwise it’s in good shape.”

The Navajo Code Talker exhibit was scheduled to open this year, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum is closed until further notice. According to its website, the museum did not have a reopening date.

“I guess what he has done is the essence of being a Navajo Marine,” Barbara said.

Wilfred was married to Matilda Tsosie Billey, Together they had six children – three boys and three girls. He has eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Only four Navajo Code Takers remain.

They are: John Kinsel Sr., Samuel Sandoval, Thomas H. Begay and Peter MacDonald Sr.

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