The FReeper Foxhole Reviews "The VJ-Day Kiss" (8/14/1944)- August 15th, 2004

see educational sources

[snippy_about_it]

And who kissed whom?



Truth betold, only Eisie (who passed away on Wednesday, August 23 at the age of 96) ever knew the answer. But since his notes and other negatives have vanished, he couldn't make a final choice. It leaves us to wonder if, in some almost supernatural way, through the magic of his photographic artistry he didn't manage to get a picture of them all...

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The sailor, says Bill Swicegood, "looks exactly like I looked--the hands, the body, everything," including, he notes, his then 32-inch waist. The odds too are on his side, says Swicegood, 55, a Kansas City, Mo., artist. "I must have kissed a thousand women that day in Times Square." Bill says his claim has achieved the status of local oral history due to all the years he has hauled out that picture in boastful kiss-and-tell.

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That distinctive way his hairline comes to a point at the temple--that cinches it, believes Clarence "Bud" Harding. "My hair stylist," reports Bud, 60, a printer at the Indianapolis Star and News, "says very few people have that." But that's not all, notes Harding, pointing to his clincher, the hands match up just right. "I also have a bulging vein," Bud says, elbowing aside any lingering doubts, "on my right arm when I apply pressure."

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When Wallace C. Fowler confessed to his wife that he was the exuberant sailor, she retorted that that sailor appeared to be, well, taller. "Consequently," says the five- foot-seven Fowler, 55 of Tampa, Fla., "I perished the thought." But the blissful memory lingered. Fowler hit upon an explanation for the apparent discrepency: "I realized that the angle of the camera could give a taller impression."

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George Mendonsa, 57, who now runs a fish business in Newport, R.I., recalls the moment clearly. "I had quite a few drinks that day," he says, and I considered her one of the troops--she was a nurse." George says that in the photograph, dangling from his pants pocket, is his newly acquired Quartermaster 1st Class rating patch, which he couldn't take time to sew on. He was just too busy with victory ceremonies.

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"It suddenly hit me," says Jack Russell, "that our ship wouldn't be going to Japan and that the whole terrible thing was ending." Russell, now a 54-year-old psychologist in Whittier, Calif., recalls that he immediately began to manifest a high affect. "I started grabbing girls like everyone else was doing and started kissing." His clinical proof that he is the man: "My unusual left-handed kissing clutch."

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Marvin Kingsbury avers, "I was the only one on the street who did anything like that just then." The instant news was flashed of the Japanese surrender, recalls Kingsbury, 54, a Round Lake Beach, Ill., school custodian, he turned to three pals and cried, "The first girls we come to, grab 'em and kiss 'em." To strengthen his claim, Marvin points to a mole he can discern on his right cheek.

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James Kearney, 59, a refrigeration mechanic at Harvard University and second from left in the group of beer drinkers notes that although he stood five feet eight inches tall in 1945, he is nonetheless the swabbie in the picture. "That day I felt ten feet tall!"

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Donald Bonsack, 56, of Germantown, N.Y., at last decided, "I've lived with this for so long, I quess I can take it." His explanation: the bare sleeve. "I had a rate on my right arm but I had lost it for insubordination--which I won't go into. I was a hell-raiser then."

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Arthur Leask, 53 a teacher of history both at Point Pleasant Beach high school and Ocean County College in New Jersey, says he held back the truth for years, but he recollects precisely how he kissed the nurse--and the little old lady in the background too.

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John Edmonson, 53, of Charlotte, N.C., explains his lack of stripe: he had joined just months before. On a pass at the time, Edmondson had gone to Times Square, "where a lot of kissing was going on." He says, "That's my poise."

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The brother and sister of Walker Irving, who died in 1951, remember the picture hanging in the family home. Walker, holding a niece above, called his folks in Portland, Maine, that August to tell them he was in LIFE, and he immediately became "a famous-faced man." For the Irvings, there is just no question about the identity of the sailor: "Look at those hands!"

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FAIR MAIDS FROM AFAR CLAIM THEY WERE KISSED

"Let me tell you," says Edith Shain, "the sun goes up, the sun goes down. It didn't change things. It wasn't a big deal." After all, a pretty girl gets more than one kiss, right? But for the record, Edith describes the situation. "It was a good kiss, it went on for a long time," she recalls. "I closed my eyes, I didn't resist. I think, sometimes, if I hadn't been with my girlfriend, I might have stayed."

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Greta Friedman is understanding. "There's no doubt that Mrs. Shain was there and got kissed," she grants, "because every female was grabbed and kissed by men in uniform." But, says Greta, 56, of Frederick, Md., "it definately is my shape. I used a comb in my hair. I had a purse like the one in the nurse's hand. i remember being kissed by a sailor, right on Broadway."

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Just before it happened, Barbara Sokol recalls, she got "an ucky, sloppy kiss" and was wiping her mouth with a handkerchief when up walked this gob who yelled, "'Gotcha' I said, 'No! No! No!' and when hwe bent me back I thought, 'My God, I'm gonna fall'" Barbara, 56, a nurse in Derby, Conn., has kept the pictured moment preserved in a frame, "my one claim to fame.

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I guess we'll never know, and that's okay.

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Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

http://www.life.com/Life/special/kiss01.html
http://www.armed-guard.com/bag7.html

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/japansur/js-2a.htm

[snippy_about_it]

[snippy_about_it]

[snippy_about_it]

"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Sunday Morning Everyone



If you would like to be added to our ping list, let us know.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the idea Cannoneer. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

Some great pictures on today's thread.

But I have this urge to yell out

"I'm Spartacus!!"

[snippy_about_it]

But I have this urge to yell out

"I'm Spartacus!!"

LOL. You can't because...

I'm Spartacus!

[SAMWolf]

[SAMWolf]

:-) Good night, Snippy.

[snippy_about_it]

Good night Sam.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

You're welcome.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The FReeper Foxhole Remembers the Invasion of Japan - Operation Olympic(11/1/1945) - Aug. 15th, 2003

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[alfa6]

Good Morning Bump for the Friends at the Foxhole

Off to work I must go, here's hoping the rest of you have a fine day.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[snopercod]

Oh what the heck. I had to see this one.

Nice job. (Printing it out for my Father-in-law.)

[ken5050]

FYI..in yesterday's NY Time, there's a great pic of a statue that was put on display yesterday on the exact spot..it's of the couple kissing..realy cool...not sure if it's on their web site..

[GailA]

Good morning, another cool one here in Memphis, this keeps up and I'll be digging out long sleeve shirts.

[Tax-chick]

Good morning, all! Raining on the east coast, again. Don't we just *love* hurricane season?

Good story ... my great-uncle was on a ship ready to attack Japan on August 14!

Soon we'll have a generation that doesn't even recognize a traditional nurse's uniform - they all wear scrubs with cartoon characters, these days. I suppose it makes for easier laundry!

[The Mayor]

August 15, 2004

The Total Package

Read: Colossians 1:19-23

You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. —1 Corinthians 6:20

Bible In One Year: Psalms 91-93; Romans 15:1-13

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Our family had lived in the same house for many years, and it was time for a change of scenery. When we finally discovered a house we liked, we began negotiating for its purchase.

We had to find out if the refrigerator stayed. And the stove. But we knew some things were not going to stay. The furniture didn't come with the house. And I jokingly wondered if we could keep the cars in the garage.

When you buy a house, you may not get the total package. The owner takes his belongings with him, although you may have the option to buy some of them.

Many things in life have purchase options. But that's not how it is with our faith in Jesus Christ. When Jesus purchased us with His blood on the cross, He didn't get only a portion of us. He's not just the Lord of the religious stuff; He owns everything. So why do we sometimes live as if parts of us don't belong to Jesus? That's not fair to the buyer.

"You were bought at a price," Paul wrote. "Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Christ bought us—body, soul, and spirit. Let's make sure we let Him use the total package for His glory. —Dave Branon

You have bought us, and no longer
Can we claim to be our own;
Giving freely, naught withholding,
We shall serve You, Lord, alone. —Murray

Jesus gave His all; He deserves our all.