25-07-2025
‘Papa' Jake Larson obituary: D-Day veteran and TikTok sensation
TikTok is a way for young people to follow the latest trends, yet one of the social media platform's most popular personalities was a centenarian sharing stories from 1944.
When Second World War veterans' events were cancelled in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, McKaela Larson started a TikTok account for her grandfather, Jake Larson, an American who took part in the Normandy landings and the Battle of the Bulge. His war tales, shared under Story Time With Papa Jake, attracted 1.2 million followers and more than 11 million 'likes'.
The spry Larson appeared in more than 200 posts and relished his late-in-life celebrity, whether responding to fan mail at home from the padded comfort of his reclining chair, making his first trip to Disneyland or throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game — as he did aged 102 in March for the San Francisco Giants.
