BY RAMONA DU HOUX
AT D-DAY MEDIC
T
he sound of bullets popping through air and piercing the water haunts Charles Nor- man Shay to this day. He doesn’t recall how many wounded men he pulled from the water while machine gun rounds streamed past. He doesn’t really want to remember that day
when he repeatedly plunged into the treacherous sea to carry men up onto Omaha Beach. The 19-year-old Penobscot from Indian Island, Me., was an Army medic in the 16th
known as the Big Red One. Shay had the distinction of being in one of the three combat regiments of the 1st
Infantry Regiment, part of the unit Infantry Division
that spearheaded the D-Day assault in Normandy, France. On the evening before the invasion landing, Shay had a sur-
prise visit from a fellow Penobscot, Melvin Neptune. It seemed like destiny to meet someone he knew well from his small home reservation aboard an attack transport ship. “He didn’t trouble me with his combat experience, nor did he offer me advice. Instead, we talked about home, because he knew I had never been in combat . . . all hell was about to break loose on me,” Shay recalls. The Big Red One sustained about 2,000 casualties, most
during the first hour of the landings under heavy German fire. With his eyes stinging from the thick smoke that engulfed
the battle, Shay looked seaward at injured men struggling to get ashore, loaded down with equipment. Some were drown- ing in the rising tide. Without hesitation he ran into danger.
THE HUMBLE HEROISM OF CHARLES NORMAN SHAY
E SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 33
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