D-Day through the eyes of a combat medic in the first wave at Omaha Beach
On D-Day, Charles Shay found himself landing with the 1st Infantry Division in the first wave of assault on Normandy's Omaha Beach.
BY MAX HAUPTMAN | PUBLISHED JUN 6, 2022 1:52 PM EDT
On June 6, 1944 — “D-Day” — Charles Shay was 19 years old, and a long way from his home in Indian Island, Maine. He had grown up on the Penobscot Indian Reservation, but after being drafted in 1943, he found himself with the 16th Infantry Regiment, part of the 1st Infantry Division landing in the first assault wave on Omaha Beach in Normandy.
“The seas were red with the blood. At the very beginning, it was difficult for me to witness so much carnage,” Shay recounted to American Indian Magazine in 2018. “I had to push what I was experiencing out of my mind, so I could function the way I was trained to function. Then I was able to operate effectively and even saved a few lives. I have always been proud to be a medic. It’s a special privilege.”
Also attached to the 16th Infantry Regiment was a photographer, Robert Capa, who captured some of the only images taken from Omaha Beach on that day. You may have seen them before, blurry photos of soldiers stumbling out of landing craft through the surf towards a distant bluff, or crouching under beach obstacles. They were iconic enough that they inspired some of the cinematography for the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
But Shay was not in a movie. As Shay recounted in one interview, there were casualties as soon as the ramps dropped and his unit hit the beach.
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