Raised in Maine, Shay was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. The 19-year-old was selected for training as a medical technician — which included basic surgery skills. Once ready for deployment, Shay joined the Medical Detachment of the First Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment, and got into the thick of it pretty quickly: he was a platoon medic to Fox Company as it went in during the first wave of the landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Shay pulled several wounded soldiers from the rising tide and saved many from drowning — and was awarded the Silver Star for his valor under fire. He also served at the Battles of Aachen, Huertgen Forest, and the Ardennes, the latter best known to Americans as the Battle of the Bulge. While traveling later with a reconnaissance squadron inside Germany, the squadron was captured and force-marched 50-60 miles to the Stalag VI-G POW camp, where he was held until American forces liberated the cap in April 1945.
Shay made it home safely, but couldn’t find work, so he rejoined the Army, continuing as a medic but in much calmer surroundings in Vienna, Austria. He married an Austrian woman, Lilli Bollarth. When the Korean War got going, and Shay joined the 3rd Division’s 7th Infantry Regiment, again as a medic. After training in Japan, the regiment deployed into Korea. Fighting was rough there, too: Shay was awarded the Bronze Star three times in 1951, for action in February, in March (with Valor), and in July (again with Valor). After the war he returned to Lily in Vienna, where he worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency. They traveled frequently to visit his first home at Maine’s “Indian Island” — the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation — where Shay was considered a respected elder. When he retired in 2003, Shay moved with Lily back to Indian Island. Almost immediately, Lily fell ill and died. Shay rebuilt a small structure his aunt had built and made it into a family museum.
In 2007, Shay decided to travel to France for memorial observations of D-Day at Normandy. It was the first time he had been back since D-Day, and was able to find the sand dunes where he had gone for cover that day. There, he burned sweetgrass, sage, and tobacco in memory of has comrades who fought and died there. “The ceremonies are my way of trying to take up contact with the spirits of the brave men that remain there,” he said. “I let them know they’re not forgotten.” Shay’s three brothers also served in World War II: two in the U.S. Navy, and one in the Army Air Corps as a B-17 gunner. All survived. After Normandy, Shay then visited Mons, Aachen, Hurtgen Forest, the Ardennes, and Auel. All along the way, a documentary film crew followed Shay as he narrated his memories. It was also all turned into a book, Project Omaha Beach: The Life and Military Service of a Penobscot Native American Elder. *
Upon his return to the U.S., Shay was requested to visit the French ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C., where President Nicolas Sarkozy inducted him into the Legion of Honour, the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil — apparently the first American Indian so honored. Shay continued to travel to the Normandy memorials every year thereafter. In 2008, Shay was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the 16th Infantry Regiment in a special ceremony at Fort Riley, Kansas, home base of the 1st Infantry Division. In 2009, he helped establish June 21 as Native American Veterans Day in Maine, the first state in the U.S. to do so. In 2017, his spot in the dunes on Omaha Beach was designated as the Charles Shay Indian Memorial to honor not just Shay, but about 500 other Native Americans who fought there that day.
When he went again in 2018, it was to stay: Shay moved to Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse, France, about a 25-minute drive from Omaha Beach. It was good timing, because for the 2019 commemorations, it is thought he was the only American to attend because of the Covid-19 lockdowns. In 2022, Shay passed the remembrance task to another Native American soldier, Julia Kelly of the Crow tribe, a Gulf War veteran. “I have always been proud to be a medic. It’s a special privilege,” he said years after the wars he served in. “We were second-class citizens in our own country but served this country faithfully. In effect, we were fighting to protect our own land,” he said. “We are very fortunate as a people to live in this great democratic land, where we enjoy freedom of speech and religion. Many other countries enjoy these privileges too, but some people are forced to exist under suppression and live under the willpower of a minority, which creates much unrest in the world.” Charles Norman Shay died at his home in France on December 3, at 101. His ashes will be buried in the sand at his memorial on Omaha Beach.