Charles Shay, a decorated Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and helped save lives, died on Wednesday. He was 101.
Shay died at his home in Bretteville-L'Orgueilleuse in France's Normandy region, his longtime friend and carer Marie-Pascale Legrand said.
Shay, of the Penobscot tribe and from Indian Island in the U.S. state of Maine, was awarded the Silver Star for repeatedly plunging into the sea and carrying critically wounded soldiers to relative safety, saving them from drowning. He also received France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor, in 2007.
Shay had been living in France since 2018, not far from the shores of Normandy where nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and other nations landed on D-Day on June 6, 1944. The Battle of Normandy hastened Germany’s defeat, which came less than a year later.
“He passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones,” Legrand told The Associated Press.
The Charles Shay Memorial group, which honors the memory of about 500 Native Americans who landed on the Normandy beaches, said in a statement posted on Facebook that “our hearts are deeply saddened as we share that our beloved Charles Norman Shay ... has returned home to the Creator and the Spirit World.”
“He was an incredibly loving father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle, a hero to many, and an overall amazing human being,” the statement said. “Charles leaves a legacy of love, service, courage, spirit, duty and family that continues to shine brightly.”
For year, Shay performed a sage-burning ceremony, in homage to those who died, at a site overlooking Omaha Beach, where the monument bearing his name now stands. In 2022, he handed over the remembrance task to another Native American, Julia Kelly, a Gulf War veteran from the Crow tribe.
On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.
“I guess I was prepared to give my life if I had to. Fortunately, I did not have to,” Shay said in March 2024 in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I had been given a job, and the way I looked at it, it was up to me to complete my job,” he recalled. “I did not have time to worry about my situation of being there and perhaps losing my life. There was no time for this.”
