PARIS, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Charles Norman Shay, a Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed off the Normandy coast on D-Day and helped save lives, died at age 101 on Wednesday.
Shay died at his home near Caen in France’s Normandy region, his carer Marie-Pascale Legrand said.
Born on June 27, 1924, on the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation in Maine, Shay was among some 500 Native Americans who took part in the June 6, 1944 landings.
The assault marked a decisive stage in the liberation of Europe from German forces in World War Two.
As a U.S. Army medic, he ran across the beach dozens of times, dragging men out of the surf and patching up their wounds under heavy fire — actions for which he was awarded a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars, and France’s Legion d’Honneur.
He moved to Normandy in 2017 and became a familiar figure at annual commemorations, insisting he was no hero, only a soldier who did his duty. “We lost many men,” he recalled in a 2019 interview marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day. “I had to blank it all off so I could concentrate on my mission.”
“Normandy lost today one of its heroes and a keeper of memory,” the Normandy Region said on X.
In later years, Shay worked for recognition of the role played by Native Americans during the war. His efforts bore fruit when a memorial was erected to the Native Americans who fought on Omaha Beach at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer. In Native folklore they are known as the boys from Turtle Island, so it features a large granite turtle.
Shay will be buried there, near the sands where history changed course, local French media said.
(Reporting by Lucien Libert, Writing by Dominique VidalonEditing by Alexandra Hudson)
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