Just three weeks after receiving one of France’s highest military honors, a decorated WWII veteran from Maine has died.
Shay, 101, died at his home near Caen in France’s Normandy region, his family 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.
Shay was formally inducted into the Order of Military Medical Merit during a bedside ceremony in Bayeux, France on November 20.
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.
Besides recently being pinned with the French combat medal, Shay’s home state last year named a new Penobscot Bay island ferry after him.
The newest vessel of the Maine State Ferry Service proudly carries the name plate Charles Norman Shay.
