From Indian Island to Omaha Beach: The Story of Charles Shay, Penobscot Indian War Hero

by Prins, Harald E. L.

• ISBN13: 9780884483182
• ISBN10: 0884483185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-12-01
• Publisher: Tilbury House Pub

Summary

Among the many thousands of Allied troops crossing the stormy sea to France¿s Normandy coast on the dark night of June 6, 1944, were a few dozen American Indian soldiers¿including Charles Shay and Melvin Neptune from the small village of Indian Island on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Serving in the legendary 1st Infantry Division, better known as the Big Red One, they found themselves aboard the same transport ship. Neptune, a battle-hardened scout and rifleman, had fought against German enemy forces in North Africa and Sicily. Shay, recently drafted, was a nineteen-year-old medic newly assigned to the 16th Regiment. They talked about home until midnight, then said farewell. Before dawn, Shay and his platoon boarded a small landing craft to Omaha Beach. At 6.30 a.m., halted by explosives and obstacles about 400 yards from shore, they waded in under horrendous enemy fire. Immediately, many were pierced by bullets or shrapnel, their blood staining the water red. ¿It was every man for himself,¿ Shay recalls. Having reached the seawall, he saw hundreds of dead and dying men. Braving a barrage of fire, he ran back and pulled wounded comrades out of the rising tide, dragging them to the shelter of a low sand dune where he treated them. For his heroism that morning when his regiment suffered nearly 1,000 casualties, the young Penobscot earned his first Silver Star. Called "doc" by his comrades, Shay saved many lives on battlefields from Normandy to the Ardennes and beyond. After crossing the Rhine, he was captured by German troops, but survived the POW camps. Three Penobscots died in the war and several were wounded, but Shay and his three brothers made it safely home. So did Melvin Neptune. From their small tribe of about 500 men, women, and children, almost every eligible male served in World War II. Reenlisting, Shay served in Austria, then distinguished himself as a combat medic in the Korean War, followed by a stint in the southern Pacific when atomic bombs were tested at the Marshall Islands. After many years abroad, he moved back to Indian Island. In 2007, the eighty-three-year-old veteran revisited Omaha Beach and other WWII battlefields for the first time. Soon after his story became public, the President of France personally inducted this Indian war veteran as a Chevalier in the illustrious Légion d'Honneur.

Author Biography

Harald E. L. Prins is a University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University and Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution. Born in the Netherlands, he does research in South and North America. Instrumental in the recognition and land claims of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, he also served as expert witness in the U.S. Senate and various Canadian courts. Formerly president of the Society for Visual Anthropology and visual anthropology editor of the ôAmerican Anthropologist,ö he has produced films such as Our Lives in Our Hands and written many scholarly articles and books such as The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival. Bunny McBride is an anthropologist and award-winning writer. Her books include Women of the Dawn, Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris and Our Lives in Our Hands: Micmac Indian Basketmakers. In 2007 she completed (with Harald Prins) a two-volume cultural-historical study for National Park Service, Asticou's Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Since 1981, McBride has worked on projects and museum exhibitions with Maine tribes. In 1999 the Maine State Legislature officially recognized her research and writing on the history of Wabanaki women. She serves on the board of the Women's World Summit Foundation, based in Geneva.