World War II veteran Jake Larson meets youths during ceremonies at the U.S. cemetery to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings, in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, on June 6, 2025. Thomas Padilla/AP Photo
PARIS—D-Day veteran ″Papa Jake″ Larson, who survived German gunfire on Normandy’s bluffs in 1944 and then garnered more than one million followers on social media late in life by sharing stories to commemorate World War II and his fallen comrades, has died at 102.
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,” his granddaughter wrote in announcing his death.
