Oldest US veteran of WWII, Lawrence N. Brooks, dies at 112

“I got lucky. I was saying to myself, ‘If I’m going to be shooting at somebody, somebody’s going to be shooting at me and he might get lucky and hit,’” he said.

He often told the story about a time when he was a passenger in a C-47 aircraft delivering a load of barbed wire to the front when one of the transport plane’s engines went out.

After they dumped the cargo to conserve weight, he made his way to the cockpit. He told the pilot and co-pilot that since they were the only two with parachutes, if they had to jump for it, he was going to grab on to one of them.

“We made it, though,” he said during the 2014 oral history interview, laughing. “We had a big laugh about that.”

Despite not being in combat, Brooks did experience enemy fire during the war. He said the Japanese would sometimes bomb Owen Island, where he worked. He said he learned to tell the difference between the sounds of Japanese, American and German planes approaching.

“We’d be running like crazy, trying to hide,” he said. They had to dig foxholes to protect themselves.

He was discharged from the Army in August 1945 as a private first class.

When he returned from service, he worked as a forklift driver until retiring in his 60s. He has five children, five stepchildren, and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He lost his wife, Leona, shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

That 2005 disaster destroyed his home. Then in his late 90s, he was evacuated from his home’s roof via helicopter. His daughter described him as “resilient.”

“He’s been through a lot. He’s real tough, and that’s one thing I learned from him. If nothing else, he instilled in me, ‘Do your best and whatever you can’t do, it don’t make no sense to worry about it,’” she told the AP. “I think that’s why he has lived as long as he has.”

Starting with his 105th birthday, the museum began throwing him annual birthday parties. His favorite part of the celebration was watching the Victory Belles, a trio performing the music of the 1940s. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the museum organized a parade in front of his home with brass bands and Krewe of Zulu warriors in full regalia.

“Even at 112, Mr. Brooks stood up for a little bit and danced,” Crean said.