It’s probably the most famous photo in American history. You know the one. A dark-clad sailor clutches a woman in a white nurse’s uniform, dipping her back in a dramatic, cinematic arch right in the middle of a crowded New York City street. It screams romance. It screams relief. It’s the visual shorthand for the end of World War II. But honestly, if you look closer at the nurse and sailor kissing in that frame, the story isn't nearly as simple as a "happily ever after" postcard.
The image, captured by Alfred Eisenstaedt on V-J Day (August 14, 1945), appeared in Life magazine and instantly became an icon. Most people assume they were a couple. They weren't. They were total strangers. They didn't even know each other's names when the shutter clicked.
The Chaos of V-J Day and That Sudden Kiss
New York City was a pressure cooker that day. When the news broke that Japan had surrendered, ending the bloodiest conflict in human history, the city basically exploded. Thousands of people flooded Times Square.
George Mendonsa, the sailor in the photo, was on leave. He’d seen the horrors of the Pacific theater. He’d watched nurses care for wounded sailors on hospital ships, and that stayed with him. He was actually on a date with another woman—Rita Petry, who would later become his wife—when he heard the news. Fueled by adrenaline and quite a bit of celebratory alcohol, he saw a woman he thought was a nurse and just reacted.
The woman was Greta Zimmer Friedman. She wasn't actually a nurse; she was a dental assistant. But she was wearing white.
Why the "Romance" Narrative is Complicated
For decades, the world looked at the nurse and sailor kissing as the ultimate symbol of love. Today, we look at it through a very different lens. Greta herself was clear in later interviews, specifically with the Veterans History Project in 2005, that it wasn't a romantic moment for her. It was something that happened to her.
"It wasn't my choice to be kissed," she said. "The guy just came over and grabbed!"
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She described it as an act of jubilation on his part, but she was caught completely off guard. He was strong. He held her tight. It’s a classic example of how history can be reinterpreted over time. What looked like a passionate embrace to a photographer standing several feet away was actually a split-second encounter between two people caught in a whirlwind of national euphoria.
Identifying the Faces in the Crowd
For years, nobody knew who they were. Dozens of men and women claimed to be the pair in the photo. It became a bit of a historical detective mystery.
Eisenstaedt didn't get their names. He was too busy dodging people and trying to get the shot. He was using a Leica M3, and he only managed to snap four frames of the encounter. If you look at the other frames in the sequence, you can see the sailor’s actual date, Rita, smiling in the background. Imagine that. Your future husband is famously kissing another woman, and you're just happy the war is over.
- George Mendonsa: A Quartermaster 1st Class who served on the USS The Sullivans. He was eventually identified through sophisticated facial recognition technology and forensic analysis.
- Greta Zimmer Friedman: A refugee from Austria who had lost her parents in the Holocaust. She didn't even see the photo until the 1960s when she was flipping through a book of Eisenstaedt’s work.
There was another prominent claimant for the nurse, Edith Shain, who worked with Eisenstaedt for years to promote the photo's legacy. However, forensic anthropologists later determined she was too short to be the woman in the iconic shot.
The Technical Brilliance of the Shot
Photographically, the nurse and sailor kissing is a masterpiece of composition, even if it was a fluke.
Eisenstaedt was looking for "the" moment. He saw a flash of white (the nurse's uniform) and a flash of black (the sailor's wools). He waited for them to contrast. The lead-in lines of the buildings in Times Square draw your eye right to the center of the frame. The dip creates a "V" shape, mirroring the "V" for Victory theme of the day.
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It’s worth noting that another photographer, Victor Jorgensen, caught the same moment from a different angle. His photo, titled "Kissing the War Farewell," was published in the New York Times. It’s a tighter shot, lacks the grand scale of Eisenstaedt’s version, and is often forgotten because it doesn't have that same "swept off her feet" perspective.
Cultural Impact and the Modern Backlash
In the 2020s, the statue version of this photo in Sarasota, Florida, has been the site of protests.
The conversation has shifted toward the concept of consent. When we see the nurse and sailor kissing now, many people don't see a celebration; they see a random act of physical imposition. It’s a polarizing topic. Some argue we shouldn't judge 1945 by 2026 standards, while others believe that acknowledging Greta's lack of agency in the moment is crucial for historical accuracy.
Basically, the photo has become a mirror. It reflects what the viewer wants to see about American history—either the unbridled joy of a hard-won peace or the complicated realities of social dynamics in the mid-20th century.
Facts vs. Myths: Setting the Record Straight
- Myth: They got married after the war.
- Fact: They never saw each other again until decades later. George stayed with Rita, the girl in the background.
- Myth: It was a staged photo for a magazine cover.
- Fact: It was entirely spontaneous. Eisenstaedt was "hunting" for images and happened to be in the right place.
- Myth: She was a nurse.
- Fact: Greta was a dental assistant. She had just come from her office and was heading into the fray to see if the rumors of peace were true.
How to View the Legacy of V-J Day Today
If you want to understand the nurse and sailor kissing beyond the surface level, you have to look at the context of the era. The world had been at war for six years. Millions were dead. The relief wasn't just "yay, we won," it was "I'm not going to die tomorrow."
That kind of relief does strange things to people. It makes them run into the streets. It makes them shout. And, in George’s case, it made him grab the first person in a uniform that reminded him of the people who saved lives at sea.
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What You Should Do Next
History isn't a static thing. It's a conversation. If you're interested in the nuances of this era, here is how you can dig deeper without falling into the trap of romanticized myths.
Look at the full contact sheet. Find the other three frames Eisenstaedt took. They tell a much more frantic, less "perfect" story than the one frame that became famous. You can see the people bumping into them and the lack of a "spark" once the dip ended.
Read the oral histories. The Library of Congress has the full interview with Greta Zimmer Friedman. Listening to her voice—rather than reading a caption written by a magazine editor—changes how you perceive the image. She was a woman who had fled the Nazis and was trying to build a life in America. Her perspective on that day is grounded in survival, not just a kiss.
Visit the sites of memory. If you're in New York, stand at the intersection of Broadway and 45th. It’s a tourist trap now, covered in LED screens and Elmo costumes. But if you strip that away, you can still feel the scale of the space where a sailor and a "nurse" became the faces of an entire generation for 1/125th of a second.
Understanding the nurse and sailor kissing requires holding two truths at once: it was a moment of profound national relief, and it was a moment where personal boundaries were blurred by the chaos of history. Both things are true. Neither cancels out the other. That’s just how history works.