She added, “It was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn’t a romantic event.”
Posted on 02/22/2019 8:06:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The ecstatic sailor shown kissing a woman in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II died Sunday. George Mendonsa was 95.
Mendonsa fell and had a seizure at the assisted living facility in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he lived with his wife of 70 years, his daughter, Sharon Molleur, told The Providence Journal.
Mendonsa was shown kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman, a dental assistant in a nurse’s uniform, on Aug. 14, 1945. Known as V-J Day, it was the day Japan surrendered to the United States. People spilled into the New York City streets to celebrate the news.
Mendonsa planted a kiss on Friedman, whom he had never met.
The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt was first published in Life magazine and is called “V-J Day in Times Square,” but is known to most as “The Kiss.” It became one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century, and is a popular image used on posters.
Several people later claimed to be the kissing couple. It was years before Mendonsa and Friedman were confirmed to be the couple.
Mendonsa served on a destroyer during the war and was on leave when the end of the war was announced.
When he was honored at the Rhode Island State House in 2015, Mendonsa spoke about the kiss. He said Friedman reminded him of nurses on a hospital ship that he saw care for wounded sailors.
“I saw what those nurses did that day and now back in Times Square the war ends, a few drinks, so I grabbed the nurse,” Mendonsa said, WPRI-TV reported .
Friedman said in a 2005 interview with the Veterans History Project that it wasn’t her choice to be kissed.
“The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed,” she told the Library of Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Over at DU they raged on this guy for sexual assault. Mercilessly.
He died after he saw the vandalism?
He’s lucky he died before he got prosecuted (sarc/off).
Shows how much the culture has changed (and not for the better)
i am glad he got to see the kiss reenacted by two lesbians/ sarc
Thanks for posting.
Condolences to family and friends of George Mendonsa.
BUMP!
Our Downtown has statues scatter around and the Sail and Nurse are one of them. Now we have cameras watching them just in case.
Only citizens alive on that day can know the majestic feeling of hearing church bells ringing, of hearing horns blowing, of hearing the happy voices of mothers, fathers, children and the old people as they knew that glorious feeling of having the burden of war being lifted from their communities!
Only ignorance and lack of empathy can produce the ugly criticisms of that spontaneous kiss that are being voiced by recipients of the blessings of liberty bought by that sailor and his peers in all the services!
Enough already!! Do something for your country and for liberty! Stop the division and smearing of the images of that period when tyranny was stopped in its tracks, allowing your generation to enjoy "the blessings of liberty" you never earned as that sailor and his peers in all the services earned for all of us!
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