PARIS, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Charles Norman Shay, a Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed off the Normandy coast on D-Day and helped save lives, died at age 101 on Wednesday.

Shay died at his home near Caen in France’s Normandy region, his carer Marie-Pascale Legrand said.

Born on June 27, 1924, on the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation in Maine, Shay was among some 500 Native Americans who took part in the June 6, 1944 landings.

The assault marked a decisive stage in the liberation of Europe from German forces in World War Two.

As a U.S. Army medic, he ran across the beach dozens of times, dragging men out of the surf and patching up their wounds under heavy fire — actions for which he was awarded a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars, and France’s Legi

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