WORLD WAR TWO Jake Larson, WWII veteran turned TikTok's 'Papa Jake,' dies at 102, granddaughter announces D-Day survivor 'Papa Jake' Larson, a member of the 'greatest generation,' shared his World War II memories with millions online May you rest in peace among your bothers in arms --thank you for my freedom It saddens me to think this generation will soon be gone
Had a good friend who was in the Marines and joined up the day he was old enough. Dropped out of high school when he was 16 and drove a truck. Was a little guy, was about 150 pounds at 90 years old. He said he was too small to be a rifleman so they had him drive a Duck in the Pacific. He said that sucked as they hauled ammo to the guys on the beach and were a prime target. The rifleman had to survive one trip to the beach and got into their foxholes. Over the first few days he had to survive a dozen trips to the beach and up onto it and unload. He never thought he was a hero and had no medals, He said at a couple places he lost over 50 % of the ones he drove with as they didn't survive when a shell hit what was basically a 6 by 6 truck that had been converted to a boat and was overloaded with supplies and ammo. Sunk at best and blown up at worst. I really miss him and his whole generation. Had a cousin who was 30 when the war started and he joined in the 1st month. Because of his age he was put into the engineers and ended up being in demolitions and an explosive expert. Had been in road construction and did some explosive work before he joined. Landed in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France. Division he was with didn't make all the landing, but after Africa they kept trading him to divisions that were landing as part of the training cadre. Ended up defusing American dud bombs in Germany after the war finished. His attitude was that he just did his job. They were the greatest generation and I don't know how they did it.
My mother's cousins husband was in the Army sent to Guadalcanal wounded never talked about it, when he passed at 76 buried at Arlington. Yes they did what was needed to be done and never thought they were heroes ----in my eyes they were
Jake was in Normandy just over a month ago, didn't see him myself but he was in all the French papers on account of his age. I'm always in France the first week in June, always at the end of the bridge now called Pegasus. I miss the veterans, so few of them left now, they must never be forgotten.
