First Americans

“I saw there was many men in the water who were floundering, and I knew if no one went to help them they would die,” Shay said. “I proceeded back in the water to get as many out as I could by turning them over on their backs and grabbing them by their shoulders. I don’t know where my strength came from. But once the adrenaline starts flowing in your body, you can do unbelievable feats of strength. I guess that’s what happened to me.”

He remained on the frontlines for almost a year, including combat in the Battle of the Bulge, until he was captured and spent nearly a month in a German prison camp, before being liberated in the war’s final days.

When he arrived home on the Penobscot Nation, he knocked on his parents’ door, which was answered by his mother — whose only word on her son’s fate to that moment had been a letter from the Army months earlier that he was “missing in action.”





Charles Shay Indian Memorial overlooking Omaha Beach, Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Calvados, Normandy, France Photo by Philippe Clément/Getty.