It is arguably the most famous photograph of the 20th century. You’ve seen it on posters in college dorms, on coffee mugs, and probably in every history textbook you ever opened. A sailor in dark wool, a woman in a crisp white nurse's uniform, their bodies arched in a dramatic, sweeping embrace right in the middle of New York City. It’s the sailor and nurse kissing photo, captured by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945. Most people see it and think "romance." They see the end of World War II and a spontaneous outburst of love.
But honestly? The reality is a lot messier than the postcard version.
If you look closely at the frame, you aren't just looking at a celebration. You’re looking at a moment of sheer, unbridled chaos. Japan had just surrendered. The "Victory over Japan Day" (V-J Day) sparked a literal riot of joy in Manhattan. People were screaming. They were drinking. They were kissing strangers. And that’s the kicker: these two were total strangers. They weren’t a couple reuniting. They weren't even on a date.
The Man in the Dark Suit: George Mendonsa
For decades, nobody actually knew who the people in the photo were. Eisenstaedt, a photographer for Life magazine, didn't stop to get names. He was too busy hunting for the perfect shot. He saw a dark shape and a white shape clashing and just started clicking his Leica. It wasn’t until years later, through forensic face-mapping and some seriously dedicated detective work, that George Mendonsa was identified as the sailor.
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George wasn’t looking for a nurse to kiss. He was actually on a date with another woman, Rita Petry, who eventually became his wife. You can actually see Rita’s face grinning in the background of some of the other frames Eisenstaedt took that day. George had been drinking. He’d seen the horrors of the war in the Pacific. He’d seen nurses caring for wounded sailors on hospital ships. When he heard the war was over, he saw a woman in a white uniform and, fueled by adrenaline and probably a fair amount of booze, he grabbed her.
The Woman in White: Greta Zimmer Friedman
The woman wasn’t even a nurse. Her name was Greta Zimmer Friedman, and she was a dental assistant. She had slipped out of her office to see if the rumors of the war's end were true. Suddenly, she was being spun around.
Greta was always very clear about this in her later years. She told the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project that it wasn’t a romantic event. "It wasn't my choice to be kissed," she said. "The guy just came over and grabbed!" She described his grip as incredibly strong. There was no "spark." It was just something that happened to her. This is where the modern lens starts to change how we view the sailor and nurse kissing photo. In the 1940s, this was seen as "boys being boys" during a national epiphany. Today, many people look at it and see a lack of consent. It’s a complicated piece of art because it forces us to reconcile a moment of global liberation with an individual moment of intrusion.
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Why the Image Became an Icon
Eisenstaedt didn’t just take one photo. He took four in the span of about ten seconds. But the one that ended up in Life magazine—the one we all know—is the one where the geometry is perfect. The way her body curves, the contrast of the black and white uniforms, the leading lines of the buildings in Times Square. It’s a masterpiece of composition.
There was another photographer there too, Victor Jorgensen. He took a photo of the same moment from a different angle. It’s a "flatter" photo. It shows more of the ground and less of the sky. It’s a great historical document, but it lacks the operatic drama of Eisenstaedt’s shot. This teaches us something about why certain images "stick." We don't remember the V-J Day kiss because it was the most important thing that happened that day. We remember it because Eisenstaedt knew how to frame a story.
The Controversy of Identity
Because the photo was so famous, dozens of people claimed to be the sailor or the nurse. It became a bit of a circus. Edith Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt in the 1970s claiming she was the woman. For a long time, the world believed her. But Shain was very short, and when researchers looked at the height of the woman in the photo relative to the sailor, the math didn’t add up.
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It took authors Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi, who wrote The Kissing Sailor, to finally put the mystery to bed using 3D modeling and bone structure analysis. They confirmed it was George and Greta. It’s fascinating that a photo meant to represent "the everyman" and "the everywoman" ended up having such specific, documented protagonists.
The Legacy in 2026
We live in a world now where we question everything. That’s a good thing. We can appreciate the sailor and nurse kissing photo as a symbol of the end of a horrific war that claimed millions of lives, while also acknowledging that the woman in the photo was a person with her own agency who was caught off guard.
Greta and George actually stayed in touch later in life. They exchanged Christmas cards. There was no animosity. They both understood that they had become symbols of a moment that was much bigger than either of them. George passed away in 2019, just two days shy of his 96th birthday. Greta passed in 2016. The era they represented is almost entirely gone now, leaving only the ink and paper behind.
How to Engage with This History Today
If you want to truly understand the impact of this photo, don't just look at it on a screen.
- Visit the Sarasota Statue: There is a massive 25-foot sculpture called "Unconditional Surrender" in Sarasota, Florida, based on the photo. Seeing it in 3D gives you a different perspective on the physical scale of the "embrace."
- Read "The Kissing Sailor": If you're a history buff, Verria and Galdorisi’s book is the definitive account. It breaks down the forensic evidence used to identify George and Greta.
- Explore the Life Magazine Archives: Look at the other photos taken in Times Square that day. You’ll see a city that was vibrating with a mix of relief and madness. It puts the "kiss" in a much broader context of a society that had been under extreme pressure for years.
- Check out the Library of Congress: They hold Greta Zimmer Friedman’s oral history. Hearing her voice describe the moment is far more powerful than reading a summary. It adds the human layer that the "perfect" photo tends to strip away.
The next time you see that image, look at Greta's clenched fist. Look at George's locked arm. It's a reminder that history isn't always a movie—it's made of real people, with real reactions, caught in the middle of a world-changing storm.