WWII Native vets pass

Been a bit of a rough week in the WWII vet community. After all, anyone remaining has to be at or beyond the 100 year mark, so while not surprising, it’s still sad. Won’t be too long until we go from ‘the last survivor of his unit/ship to ‘last survivor.

There is an exception to the last unit/ship – ‘tribe. Our first today is Gilbert “Choc” Charleston, who was the last WWII Choctaw vet, who fought in the 739th Tank Battalion, Special (Mine Exploder). He passed Wednesday night at the tender young age of 101,  last Choctaw of about 25,000 Native Americans who enlisted.

“I spent three years as a tank driver and fought from France, Luxembourg, Belgium, all of Germany back to the Battle of the Bulge,” he said.

“Many men lost their feet that were in the infantry because of the snow and the cold,” Charleston said. “We were fortunate enough in the tank not to lose our feet, but it was still 20 degrees below.”

The article says he spent three years driving tanks, but unit history tells us the 739th was a special unit. They were mine destroyers and clearers who drove tanks equipped with chain flails, rollers, dozer blades, etc. to clear mines from the path of advancing troops. Not much says a set of big brass ones more than driving intentionally into an area littered with unknown explosives. You never know when that next mine you detonate could be something much uglier than you think it is. Here is a bit more on the 739th  Axis History Forum.

Mr Charleston spent his golden years golfing, and attributed his long life to staying fit and never drinking or smoking. He was able to return to Belgium for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge least year, and met the King and Queen of Belgium.

Mr. Shay is center bottom

Charles Norman Shay also passed Wednesday at the age of 101. A member of the Penobscot tribe, he was a 19 year old medic in 1st Infantry  on D-Day and was one of only about 175 Native Americans who landed at Omaha Beach

Mr. Shay was awarded the Silver Star for saving soldiers who had been cut down by heavy German machine-gun fire after disembarking from their landing craft into the waves. In 2007, he received France’s Legion of Honor for his actions that day.

Mr. Shay participated in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. In March 1945, he and his squadron were captured by the Germans near Auel, Germany. For several weeks, he was held as a prisoner of war at Stalag VI-G, until Americans liberated the camp in April 1945, en route to forcing Germany’s surrender in May.

“I tried to cope with the situation of not having enough work or not being able to help support my mother and father,” he said last year. “Well, there was just no chance for young American Indian boys to gain proper labor and earn a good job.”

He re-enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Vienna as a medic with a military police unit. During the Korean War, he saw combat and earned the Bronze Star. He retired with the rank of master sergeant in 1952.

From 2018 until his death, Mr. Shay lived in northwestern France, in the home of a caretaker, Marie-Pascale Legrand, not far from the beaches where the World War II invasion took place. Ms. Legrand, who met Mr. Shay at a commemoration ceremony in Normandy in 2016, said in an interview that he had been lonely living in Maine and was not getting adequate health care. After visiting him there, she invited him to move to Normandy.

For several years, Mr. Shay performed a sage-burning ceremony overlooking Omaha Beach in honor of the dead. He was one of a very few American veterans able to attend D-Day commemorations in Normandy in 2020 and 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic.  NY Times

A quick footnote: Del Thiele of Dawson MN graduated high school in 1942 and wound up loading armament (believe we call ’em ordies, ordinance men?) onto planes on a carrier in the Pacific.

“We took back 16 islands. All the way to Tokyo, that’s the whole South Pacific,” Thielke said.

When Japan was ready to surrender, Thielke got more good news. Out of the 1,500 men on his ship, he was the only one selected to be aboard the USS Missouri when the peace treaty was signed.

Seems he got an interesting letter from the folks putting up a memorial to the Missouri signing in New Orleans.

The letter told Thielke that it’s possible he’s the only person still alive from that picture taken on the USS Missouri.

“I’m the last one that’s living that they can find. Isn’t that something?” Thielke said. CBS News

Category: Army, Navy, We Remember, WWII