Navajo Nation mourns passing of Code Talker

Posted at: 10/14/2009 9:45 PM
By: The Associated Press

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) - Another Navajo Code Talker has died.  Funeral services are scheduled Saturday in Lukachukai for 88-year-old Willard Varnell Oliver.

Oliver's son says his father died Wednesday at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott, Ariz., after being in declining health for the past two years.

Oliver was part of an elite group of Navajo Marines who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language.

The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945.  Their work was declassified in 1968.

Oliver is at least the fifth Code Talker to die since May.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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