The story of the kiss of the sailor and the nurse in the American Times Square, which was taken in 1945 after the announcement of the cessation of World War II and the victory of the Allies, which topped newspapers, television, and today, the modern media, is still full of secrets.
The first secret of this picture is that the sailor and the nurse do not know each other. The sailor set out for joy like the rest of the sailors in Times Square on August 14, 1945, after the announcement of the victory of the Allies and the end of World War II. The strangest thing is that the sailor kissed more than one nurse and a woman before and after the nurse with the picture famous.
Alfred Eisenstaedt, the famous American photojournalist at the time, said: “Not all kisses are planned (some of them are, but we don’t talk about them). The horizon is to show his enthusiasm for the victory.”
He added the spontaneity in the way in which the nurse, the joy, the seas, and his joy at the end of the war were behind the appearance of the kiss in this way and the kiss.
Photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt also spoke of the contrast in the dress of the sailor kissing the nurse, which gave the picture the clarity and resonance that enabled it to become a celebrity.
Which made him not bother to show their true identity and write their name on the picture, but with interest in knowing the two characters, he was behind the interest in them.
Over the course of 65 years and the search for the sailor and the nurse to find out from them, to the extent that advertisements were announced, where many men and women came forward declaring themselves to be the parties in the famous picture. But none of them has been proven to be the protagonist.
But in the late seventies and early eighties began to reveal the secrets of the famous picture.
A woman named Edith Swain came forward and said she was the nurse in the photographic documentary. However, even when her identity was successfully established, the photographer himself was unable to verify Ms. Swain's claims because he died even before he could identify her personally.
As for the sailor, a lot has progressed, but he settled on three men who said they were the sailors in the picture and found each of them very close to being the sailor. But after conducting several polygraph tests and other tests to determine the health of the three men, "George Mendonca, Carl Muscarello, and Glenn McDuffie", it was confirmed that "McDuffy" was the sailor who kissed the nurse.
"I was 26 at the time of the kiss," said Swain, who passed away at the age of 91. "It's about hope, the promise of the future, love and most importantly peace."
A full-size bronze statue was displayed in Times Square. On the anniversary of its capture, and Swain and George Mendonca (at the time in a dispute over being a sailor) participated in the ceremony, they did not reenact the kiss to mark the occasion.