Edward David Shames

Colonel Edward D. Shames (born June 13, 1922) is a retired United States Army enlisted man and officer who later served in the U.S. Army Reserve. During World War II he was assigned to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Shames is the last surviving officer and, following the death of Roderick G. Strohl in December 2019, oldest surviving member of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He is Jewish and reported being deeply affected by his personal viewing of Nazi Germany's concentration camps.

Shames was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, into a Jewish family ofDavid and Sadie Shames. His father died when he was five.

World War II

Shames read about and applied for duty with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. In August 1942, Shames was called to active duty. He was sent to Toccoa, Georgia for training, starting as a private in Item Company, 3rd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

In England, Shames was promoted to Operations Sergeant. Prior to the paratroopers making their jump on D-Day, he built the sand tables the airborne unit used in planning the airdrop into Normandy.

Shames made his first combat jump into Normandy on D-Day as part of Operation Overlord. On 13 June 1944, he received a battlefield commission to second lieutenant, although the formal commission was completed in England. He was the first NCO in the Third Battalion to receive such a commission in Normandy. He was transferred to Easy Company and took charge of its third platoon.

Shames fought with Easy Company in Operation Market Garden and volunteered for Operation Pegasus led by Frederick Heyliger. He was wounded once in his left leg during the campaigns. He then fought with the rest of E Company in the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. In Foy, Shames and Paul Rogers knocked out a German tank with a bazooka. In Germany, he saw some of the concentration camps in which the Germans imprisoned and murdered Europe's Jews and was deeply affected, because he is Jewish.

Post-war

After World War II, he served in the United States Army Reserve and retired as a colonel in 1973. He married Ida Aframe (April 9, 1922 - February 21, 2019) in 1946 and remained married for 73 years until his wife's death on February 21, 2019 at the age of 96. He currently resides in his hometown of Virginia Beach with his two children, four grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Shames was portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by Joseph May.

He also provided an audio interview for the documentary Greatest Events of World War 2: In Colour where he briefly described the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, Belgium.