A D-DAY veteran war hero who became a TikTok sensation late in life has died aged 102.
Papa Jake Larson survived German gunfire on Normandy beaches in 1944 and then gained over 1.2 million followers by sharing stories to commemorate World War II and his fallen comrades.
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The war hero’s grieving granddaughter McKaela announced his death on social media, sharing how he passed “peacefully” on Thursday.
She wrote: “An animated speaker who charmed strangers young and old with his quick smile and generous hugs, the self-described country boy from Minnesota was cracking jokes til the end.”
McKaela added: “As Papa would say, love you all the mostest.”
Tributes have poured into his Story Time with Papa Jake TikTok account.
Meanwhile towns around Normandy, still grateful to Allied forces who helped defeat the occupying Nazis in World War II, paid him homage too.
Born in 1922, in Owatonna, Minnesota, Larson enlisted in the National Guard in 1938.
The war hero had lied about his age as he was just 15 years old at the time.
In 1942, he was sent overseas and was stationed in Northern Ireland before becoming operations sergeant and assembling the planning books for the invasion of Normandy.
He was among the nearly 160,000 brave allied troops who stormed the Normandy shore on D-Day, June 6, 1944, surviving machine-gun fire when he landed on Omaha Beach.
Larson said at the 81st anniversary of D-Day in June: “We are the lucky ones. We are their family. We have the responsibility to honor these guys who gave us a chance to be alive.”
It represents one of the defining moments of the war and of evil Hitler’s defeat.
Larson’s incredible service earned him a Bronze Star and a French Legion of Honor award.
In recent years, Larson made repeated trips to Normandy for D-Day commemorations and at every stop.
And since gaining social media popularity too, Papa Jake was greeted by people asking for a selfie – but offered big hugs instead.
One memorable encounter came in 2023, when he came across Bill Gladden, a then-99-year-old British veteran who survived a glider landing on D-Day and a bullet that tore through his ankle.
He told Gladden as they held hands: “I want to give you a hug, thank you. I got tears in my eyes. We were meant to meet.”
Gladden passed away the following year.
In his TikTok posts that have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views and likes, Larson combined humorous anecdotes with somber reminders about the horrors of war.
Speaking of his social media fame in 2023, he said: “I’m just a country boy. Now I’m a star on TikTok. I’m a legend! I didn’t plan this, it came about.”
Larson has previously refused to call himself a “hero” and asked world leaders to “make peace not war”.
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