Jake Larson, 101, recounts his landing in Normandy

This American remembers his landing on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, at the age of only 21. He managed to avoid German fire and mines. But he refuses to be considered a hero.

How many survivors of the Landing are left to testify today, 80 years later ? They are not very numerous anymore, and almost all are centuries old. The whole world is preparing to celebrate the Day J in Normandy and here is the testimony of one of those who participated : Jake Larson, a 101-year-old American, who landed on Omaha Beach at age 21 with the 5th Corps of the 1st United States Army. But he refuses to be considered a hero.

On June 6, 1944, it was barely 10 a.m. when Jake Larson got off the ship USS Ancon in heavy seas, about ten kilometers from Omaha Beach. “You carry a 35 kilo bag and your rifle, he says. You go down this rope ladder and believe me, it’s not very stable ! When you arrive in the landing craft, it rises and falls with the waves. I’m the first one to get in there, I’m right behind the driver.”

A few minutes later, he was the last of the thirty soldiers to come out of this barge under German fire, but that was not what he feared the most. “We get out of the boats, water up to our chins, rifles at arm’s length above our heads. And under our feet, more than a million mines, so we progress in single file. I I’m the last one. And from time to time, we see water gushing out. It’s someone who has just stepped on a mine.”

Once on the beach, he shelters for a moment behind a mound of sand, then resumes his run, measuring 1.78 meters and weighing 54 kilos. “And there I say to myself : ‘These Germans who are shooting at me, they’re not very good at pulling toothpicks’, he smiled. HAS At the time I really looked like a toothpick. I managed to go under the cliffs. They can’t reach me from up there anymore. This is where I start to think that I am the luckiest man in the world. How I got through it all without a scratch ?”

Jake Larson then participated, still without a scratch, in the battles of Saint-Lô and Falaise, before Paris, Luxembourg, then the Ardennes. The veteran is in Normandy this week, it’s his fourth return to Omaha since 1944. And to find out everything about him, head to TikTok : his name is “Papa Jake” and he tells his life story to his more than 800 people 000 subscribers.