{"id":280355,"date":"2025-07-21T16:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/280355\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T16:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:22:10","slug":"papa-jake-larson-d-day-veteran-and-tiktok-star-dies-aged-102-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/280355\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Papa Jake\u2019 Larson, D-day veteran and TikTok star, dies aged 102 | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

D-day veteran \u201cPapa Jake\u201d Larson, who survived German gunfire on Normandy\u2019s beaches in 1944 and then garnered 1.2 million followers on TikTok<\/a> late in life by sharing stories to commemorate the second world war and his fallen comrades, has died aged 102.<\/p>\n

An animated speaker who charmed strangers young and old with his quick smile and generous hugs, the self-described country boy from Minnesota was \u201ccracking jokes til the end\u201d, his granddaughter wrote in announcing his death.<\/p>\n

Tributes to him quickly filled his Story Time with Papa Jake TikTok account from across the United States, where he had been living in Lafayette, California. Towns around Normandy, still grateful to Allied forces who helped defeat the occupying Nazis in the second world war, paid homage too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur beloved Papa Jake has passed away on July 17th at 102 years young,\u201d granddaughter McKaela Larson posted on his social media accounts. \u201cHe went peacefully.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Papa would say, love you all the mostest,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Joe Biden greets Jake Larson at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of D-day in June 2024. Photograph: Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Born on 20 December 1922, in Owatonna, Minnesota, Larson enlisted in the National Guard in 1938, lying about his age as he was only 15 at the time. In 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.<\/p>\n

He was among the nearly 160,000 Allied troops who stormed the Normandy shore on D-day<\/a>, 6 June 1944, surviving machine-gun fire when he landed on Omaha Beach. He made it unhurt to the bluffs that overlook the beach, which were studded with German gun emplacements that killed many soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the lucky ones,\u201d Larson told the Associated Press at the 81st anniversary of D-day in June, speaking among the graves at the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are their family. We have the responsibility to honour these guys who gave us a chance to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to fight through the Battle of the Bulge, a gruelling month-long fight in Belgium and Luxembourg that was one of the defining moments of the war and of Hitler\u2019s defeat. His service earned him a Bronze Star and a French Legion of Honour award.<\/p>\n

Jake Larson before a memorial ceremony held as part of the 81st anniversary of the second world war D-day Allied landings in Normandy. Photograph: Lou Benoist\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In recent years, Larson made repeated trips to Normandy for D-day commemorations.<\/p>\n

In his TikTok posts and interviews, Larson combined humorous anecdotes with somber reminders about the horrors of war.<\/p>\n

Speaking to AP on the three years he was in Europe, Larson said he is \u201cno hero.\u201d Speaking in 2024, he also had a message to world leaders: \u201cMake peace not war.\u201d<\/p>\n

He often called himself \u201cthe luckiest man in the world,\u201d and expressed awe at all the attention he was getting. \u201cI\u2019m just a country boy. Now I\u2019m a star on TikTok,\u201d he told AP in 2023. \u201cI\u2019m a legend! I didn\u2019t plan this, it came about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D-day veteran \u201cPapa Jake\u201d Larson, who survived German gunfire on Normandy\u2019s beaches in 1944 and then garnered 1.2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-280355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114892147637424427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}