Charles Shay, D-Day veteran who saved lives on Omaha Seashore as a 19-year-old U.S. Military medic, dies at 101

Charles Shay, a adorned Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Military medic when he landed on Omaha Seashore on D-Day and helped save lives, died on Wednesday. He was 101.

Shay died at his residence in Bretteville-L’Orgueilleuse in France’s Normandy area, his longtime good friend and carer Marie-Pascale Legrand mentioned.

Shay, of the Penobscot tribe and from Indian Island within the U.S. state of Maine, was awarded the Silver Star for repeatedly plunging into the ocean and carrying critically wounded troopers to relative security, saving them from drowning. He additionally obtained France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor, in 2007.

Shay had been residing in France since 2018, not removed from the shores of Normandy the place practically 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and different nations landed on D-Day on June 6, 1944. The Battle of Normandy hastened Germany’s defeat, which got here lower than a 12 months later.

“He handed away peacefully surrounded by his family members,” Legrand advised The Related Press.

Shay advised CBS Information in 2019 that he moved to France to be near his fallen brothers.

“I’ll die right here,” Shay advised CBS Information on the time. “I imagine that I can discuss with the souls of the boys which can be nonetheless wandering on the seashore right here. And I simply tried to guarantee them that they don’t seem to be forgotten.”

The Charles Shay Memorial group, which honors the reminiscence of about 500 Native People who landed on the Normandy seashores, mentioned in a assertion posted on Fb that “our hearts are deeply saddened as we share that our beloved Charles Norman Shay … has returned residence to the Creator and the Spirit World.”

“He was an extremely loving father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle, a hero to many, and an general wonderful human being,” the assertion mentioned. “Charles leaves a legacy of affection, service, braveness, spirit, obligation and household that continues to shine brightly.”

Prepared to offer his life

On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops misplaced their lives — 2,501 of them People. Greater than 5,000 have been wounded. On the German facet, a number of thousand have been killed or wounded.

“Mortars and artillery coming at us,” Shay advised CBS Information in 2019. “When the ramp went down, the boys that have been standing within the entrance, a few of them have been killed instantly.”

Others have been so badly damage, they could not drag themselves out of the surf.

“Many males that had been wounded have been laying and couldn’t assist themselves within the tide,” Shay advised CBS Information.

Shay survived.

“I suppose I used to be ready to offer my life if I needed to. Thankfully, I didn’t must,” Shay mentioned in a 2024 interview with The Related Press.

“I had been given a job, and the way in which I checked out it, it was as much as me to finish my job,” he recalled. “I didn’t have time to fret about my scenario of being there and maybe shedding my life. There was no time for this.”

On that evening, exhausted, he finally fell asleep in a grove above the seashore.

“Once I awakened within the morning, it was like I used to be sleeping in a graveyard as a result of there have been lifeless People and Germans surrounding me,” he recalled. “I stayed there for not very lengthy and I continued on my manner.”

Shay then pursued his mission in Normandy for a number of weeks, rescuing these wounded, earlier than heading with American troops to japanese France and Germany, the place he was taken prisoner in March 1945 and liberated a number of weeks later.

Spreading a message of peace

After World Battle II, Shay reenlisted within the navy as a result of the scenario of Native People in his residence state of Maine was too precarious resulting from poverty and discrimination.

Maine wouldn’t enable people residing on Native American reservations to vote till 1954.

Shay continued to witness historical past — returning to fight as a medic throughout the Korean Battle, collaborating in U.S. nuclear testing within the Marshall Islands and later working on the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company in Vienna, Austria.

For over 60 years, he didn’t speak about his WWII expertise.

However he started attending D-Day commemorations in 2007 and in recent times, he has seized many events to offer his highly effective testimony and unfold a message of peace.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, Shay’s lone presence marked commemoration ceremonies as journey restrictions prevented different veterans or households of fallen troopers from the U.S., Britain and different allied nations from making the journey to France.

Unhappiness at seeing battle again in Europe

For years, Shay used to carry out a sage-burning ceremony, in homage to those that died, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Seashore, the place the monument bearing his title now stands.

On June 6, 2022, he handed over the remembrance job to a different Native American, Julia Kelly, a Gulf Battle veteran from the Crow tribe. That was simply over three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what was to grow to be the worst battle on the continent since 1945.

Shay then expressed his disappointment at seeing battle again on the continent.

“Ukraine is a really unhappy scenario. I really feel sorry for the folks there and I do not know why this battle needed to come,” he mentioned. “In 1944, I landed on these seashores and we thought we might convey peace to the world. Nevertheless it’s not attainable.”