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.