from our special correspondent in Caen – Charles Norman Shay was one of the 500 Native Americans who came ashore on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He was barely 20 years old and had grown up on an Indian reservation in the US state of Maine. Today, the former combat medic has settled permanently in the Calvados district of Normandy, a few kilometres from where “the most important day of his life” took place.
Seated in his large red leather armchair, his grey hair impeccably combed and his tie knotted, Charles Norman Shay will celebrate his 100th birthday on June 27.
