A hero 96-year-old veteran has gone back to the D-day beaches for the first time in 75 years and revealed the horror of seeing a fellow soldier laying dead next to him inspired him to charge the cliffs and survive.
Jake Larson, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, traveled back to France to honor the memory of the fallen and the bravery of the 160,000 Allied troops who landed in Normandy in 1944.
He was just 21-years-old and a sergeant when he landed on the beaches.
Larson, the last surviving member of his company, told CBS: ‘I stopped for a cigarette behind that berm and my matches were all wet.
‘So I turned to my left and not three feet from me, there was a soldier.
‘And I says, ‘Buddy, have you got a match?’ And he didn’t answer. I looked again and there was no head under the helmet.
‘The soul of that boy inspired me to up at that instant and run for the cliff.
‘I thank that guy today. In that instant I had the ability to get up and run.’
Jake Larson, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has gone back to the D-day beaches for the first time in 75 years. The heroic soldier, who joined the National Guard in Minnesota when he was just 15 was 21-years-old and a sergeant when he landed on the beaches
Resolute faces of paratroopers just before they took off for the initial assault of D-Day, June 6, 1944. The paratrooper in the foreground has just read General Eisenhower’s message of good luck and clasps his bazooka in the other hand
. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day. Of those 73,000 were from the United States, 83,000 from Britain and Canada
The heroic soldier, who joined the National Guard in Minnesota when he was just 15, was able to travel to Normandy with his son after a GoFundMe campaign.
Speaking of June 6 he told the BBC: ‘Man, I was so tired. No-one had slept on the 4th or 5th [of June] and the seas were so rough we were turning and turning and everyone was sick.
‘But on 6 June, maybe around 06:30, it was time to go in and here we were landing at Omaha beach with the water up to our necks and machine-gun fire on all sides. It was a shooting gallery.’
French locals, he says, rushed to help him as he made it to safety, adding: ‘It was delicious, that Camembert cheese, but I didn’t know how you ate that thing – I was just a farm boy from Minnesota.
‘Then they gave us champagne! Wow! Man! Did you ever drink champagne?’
It is understood he was not sponsored for the trip after all of his military records were destroyed in a fire in 1970.
He wears a pin on his hat with the shield and motto of his military regiment, ‘To the last man’ and says: ‘I am the last man.’
Larson, the last surviving member of his company, revealed the horror of seeing a fellow soldier laying dead next to him inspired him to charge the cliffs and survive
Jake Larson poses before going for a ride in the ‘The Spirit of Benovia’ World War II-era aircraft in Oakland in April this year. He wears a pin on his hat with the shield and motto of his military regiment, ‘To the last man’ and says: ‘I am the last man’
Larson, who is writing a memoir, said he is ‘the luckiest guy in the world.’ The D-Day veteran is greeted by pilot Joe Anderson, left, before going for a ride in his ‘The Spirit of Benovia’
Larson, who is writing a memoir, tells The New York Times: ‘I never thought I’d be alive 75 years later. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.
‘It’s unbelievable to this little old farm boy from Hope, Minnesota. To me I’m in heaven.’
Veterans who traveled together from the US this week were applauded as they boarded their flight and were thanked by the pilot.
French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump praised the soldiers and airmen, the survivors and those who lost their lives, in powerful speeches Thursday that credited the June 6, 1944 surprise air and sea operation that brought tens of thousands of men to Normandy, each not knowing whether he would survive the day.
Wounded US soldiers of the 3rd Battery, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st US Infantry Division, lean against chalk cliffs while eating and smoking after storming Omaha Beach in Normandy
In the distance American Infantrymen are wading towards the beach on the Northern Coast of France during the D-Day Landings
American shock troops land on a Normandy beach, June 6, 1944, In the background, numerous other crafts awaiting landing orders
Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day. Of those 73,000 were from the United States, 83,000 from Britain and Canada.
A group of five Americans parachuted into Normandy on Wednesday as part of a commemorative jump, and showed up on the beach Thursday morning still wearing their jumpsuits, all World War II-era uniforms, and held an American flag.
The biggest-ever air and seaborne invasion took place on D-Day, involving more than 150,000 troops that day itself and many more in the ensuing Battle of Normandy. Troops started landing overnight from the air, then were joined by a massive force by sea on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats.
The Battle of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord, hastened Germany’s defeat less than a year later.
Still, that single day cost the lives of 4,414 Allied troops, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were injured. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.