A 100-Year-Old Penobscot Vet Returns Yearly to Normandy to Commemorate D-Day
In 1943, Charles Norman Shay, a 19-year-old Native from Indian Island, Maine, was a combat medic who was part of the first wave of infantrymen that arrived aboard small landing craft on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. He saved many men that day, pulling them out of the water and nursing their injuries, while dodging heavy enemy fire.