PARIS (AP) — D-Day veteran ″Papa Jake″ Larson, who survived German gunfire on Normandy’s bluffs in 1944 and garnered 1.2 million followers on TikTok late in life by sharing stories to commemorate World War II and his fallen comrades, has died at 102.
Tributes for “Story Time with Papa Jake” poured in from followers across the United States, where he had been living in Lafayette, CA., and from towns around Normandy still grateful to Allied forces who helped defeat the occupying Nazis.
“Our beloved Papa Jake has passed away on July 17th at 102 years young,” his granddaughter McKaela Larson posted on his social media accounts. “He went peacefully and was even cracking jokes til the very end.″
“As Papa would say, love you all the mostest,” she wrote.
Born Dec. 20, 1922, in Owatonna, Minnesota, Larson enlisted in the National Guard in 1938, lying about his age since he was only 15 at the time. In January 1942, he was sent overseas and was stationed in Northern Ireland. He became operations sergeant and assembled the planning books for the invasion of Normandy.
He was among the Allied troops who stormed the Normandy shore on D-Day, June 6, 1944, surviving machine-gun fire when he landed on Omaha Beach. He made it unhurt to the bluffs that overlook the beach, then studded with German gun emplacements that mowed down American soldiers.
After D-Day, he fought on through the Battle of the Bulge. In recent years, he made repeated trips to Normandy for D-Day commemorations.
“We are the lucky ones,” Larson told The Associated Press at the 81st anniversary of D-Day in June, speaking amid the immaculate rows of graves at the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.
“They had no family. We are their family. We have the responsibility to honor these guys who gave us a chance to be alive.”
