James Brant Sheen was born on September 17, 1922 in Cassia County, Idaho. He was the son of James Robert Sheen and Eliza Hanks Sheen.

Pfc Sheen was a paratrooper of the 501st PIR that took off from station 464 in Merryfield, UK in C-47 42-101025 to drop over DZ-D as part of Operation Albany during the Normandy invasion. Their target time was 0134. Their plane was the last of five waves to cross the Cotentin, over air defenses now on full alert. To complicate matters, there were heavy clouds at 1500 feet, gone unreported due to the strict radio silence. Some pilots decided to pull up and find their DZs with the Eureka-Rebecca system, others went low to obtain a visual of their DZs, and a rare few stayed the course through the cloud bank. While approaching their drop, the plane came under heavy flak fire. It exploded in mid-air at 0142.