Shames was Jewish and reported being deeply affected by his personal viewing of Nazi Germany's concentration camps.

[10][full citation needed] He built the sand tables the airborne unit used in planning the airdrop into Normandy.

[14][full citation needed] In Germany, he saw some of the concentration camps in which the Germans imprisoned and murdered Europe's Jews and, like many American soldiers, was deeply affected.

[11][full citation needed] During the exploration of Eagle's Nest, Shames found a supply of cognac labeled "for the Fuhrer's use only."

[15] After World War II, Shames worked for the National Security Agency as a specialist on Middle East affairs from 1945 to 1982.

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.

[17] Edward Shames and his men from the Easy Company, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, were the first to go into Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

[18] Once inside, Shames took 2 bottles of Cognac bearing a label that said “For the Führer’s use only”[19][20] in Kehlsteinhaus was reported to be a room of alcohol.

And in 1961 at the Norfolk’s B’nai Israel synagogue[23] Colonel Ed Shames opened it in celebration of his son’s bar mitzvah.