Charles Norman Shay, Tribal Elder and World War II Hero, Dies at 101

[douglas9]

2. D-Day vet who moved to Normandy in final years dies at 101

As a teenager from the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine, Charles Norman Shay pulled drowning troops to shore on Omaha Beach, earning a Silver Star as a medic on one of World War II’s defining days. In his final decade of life, he lived in a small Normandy town just miles from that shoreline, sharing his story with tourists and American troops who visited the hallowed beach. A statue of Shay now stands above the sands, part of a memorial to Native American soldiers who fought in the landings.

Shay, 101, died Wednesday in his home in Thue et Mue, France, just outside of Caen, about 30 miles from Omaha Beach. He was believed to be the last of roughly 500 Native American soldiers who came ashore in the June 6, 1944 landings, including as many as 175 on Omaha Beach, according to some Native American researchers. His company landed far from their assigned zone, directly in front of two German machine gun positions.

“My concern was to get to the beach. I was thinking about survival. I began treating the men on the beach who had made it,” he told a Library of Congress interviewer in 2017.

Naval gunfire and an assault by fellow soldiers took out the machine guns, Shay said, as he tended to wounded soldiers. As the tide began to come in, he looked back and saw troops struggling in the water.


https://taskandpurpose.com/news/d-day-vet-normandy-native-dies/