Bill Shea, longtime proprietor of a gas station museum along Route 66 in Springfield, Ill., turns 90 years old on Dec. 30, and is also marking his 66th year as a business owner on the Mother Road.
To mark the occasion, the City of Springfield is declaring Dec. 30 as Bill Shea Day, according to Alicia Erickson at the Springfield Convention and 
Visitors Bureau.
Shea has been a great ambassador for Route 66 for many years, even though he’s never driven the length of the road. He’s in the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame, and has been the subject of many Route 66 books and videos.
But what’s lesser-known is he’s also a veteran of the D-Day invasion in 1944. Longtime roadie RoadDog recently passed along this story that Shea told about his Omaha Beach experiences:
I mentioned about the LST-325 that is touring the Illinois River at the current time. Bill said he landed on Omaha Beach in a Higgins Boat, the one you see Tom Hanks on in “Saving Private Ryan.” He said that the guys running the boat would always drop that front end way out in the water so that the soldiers would be completely inundated when they stepped off it. That was particularly bad for him as he was short to begin with.
Making the disembarkation worse was that the Higgins Boat had stopped over some shell craters caused by the huge bombardment that preceded the landings.
He’ll never forget the guy from Louisiana who left the boat when he did. When the two managed to surface, the Louisianan sputtered, “This will be an even easier landing for the bastards behind us because I just drank half the channel.”
Mr. Shea still has sand taken from the beach on D-Day as well as some dragon teeth from an emblem from the German line and rocks from the cliff scaled by US forces at D-Day.
Shea’s military uniform also hangs at the museum. According to one blogger who interviewed him, that uniform also was worn by his son, his grandson, and even great grandson before they went off to the armed services.
A bunch more photos of Shea’s museum can be found here.
Bill Shea’s Gas Station Museum also has a Facebook page here.
Here’s a video of the museum. Alas, Bill wasn’t there that day:
https://youtu.be/Ta9DGVkjZNs
Nice tribute to afine gentleman. ‘ve visited with him several times. At least 2 -3 times a year. He’s always full of stories and there to meet and greet my tour bus.
I dropped in on Bill today and he was being interviewed by one of the local network stations (channel 20). He had some family visiting as well. He said he is not going to decrease his works days to half and will continue to be at the station full time. He said that there might be a ceremony on January 10, 2012 by the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau to present him with a plaque.
We have been there soooo many times, we have never found the station open. Maybe someday…..would love to see the inside!