George Mendonsa, best known as the
Feb. 18 (UPI) — George Mendonsa, best known as the «kissing sailor» in the iconic V-J Day World War II photo from New York City’s Times Square, has died. He was 95.
Mendonsa died Sunday, his daughter Sharon Molleur said.
Mendonsa was on leave in Manhattan when the end of World War II was announced on Aug. 14,1945. He told the authors of a book based on the photo he was so caught up in the moment that he kissed a total stranger, NBC News reported.
The kiss, taken by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt and published in Life magazine in crowded Times Square, became one of the enduring images of the end of the war. It also started a long-running mystery to identify Mendonsa and the nurse, who was later found to be Greta Zimmer Friedman.
