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George Mendonsa, who claimed in the most credible way to be the sailor shown kissing a woman in Times Square after the end of the Second World War on a photo became a national emblem of the world. exaltation, died Sunday in a retirement home, in Middletown, RI He was 95.
He died after an epileptic seizure, said Lawrence Verria, who, along with George Galdorisi, wrote: "The kissing sailor: the mystery behind the photo ending World War II" (2012).
On August 14, 1945, the illustrious photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt of Life magazine took the picture shortly after Japan learned that the Japanese had surrendered. Times Square was cluttered with people celebrating the end of the war, and Eisenstaedt's four-photo series showed a uniformed sailor holding a woman in a nurse's outfit, folding her back and kissing her deeply. The two anonymous people seemed to embody the exuberance of the moment, and the picture appeared on an entire page in Life.
Eisenstaedt did not record the names of the impromptu kissers; their identities have been debated for decades. Three women claimed that they were the woman in the photo. many people who have studied the question think that she was probably Greta Friedman.
This honor may seem doubtful, given the darker connotations of the photo. An article on the 2014 photo, published on Time's website, whose parent company stopped publishing Life in 2000, said, "Many people see the photo as a document that is nothing more than the documentation of a very public sexual assault that does not deserve to be celebrated. "
"It was not really a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act than he had to go back to, I learned later," Friedman said. in a 2005 interview for the Veterans History Project. "The reason he caught someone dressed as a nurse, was that he felt very grateful to the nurses who cared for the wounded."
Mr. Verria stated that Ms. Friedman and Mr. Mendonsa became friendly and kept in touch after their meeting in 1980 and remained close until the death of Ms. Friedman in 2016.
Ms. Friedman told the Navy Times in 2012 that the day was so memorable that she understood Mr. Mendonsa's excitement. "I can not think of anyone who considered this an aggression," she said. "It was a happy event."
George Mendonsa was born February 19, 1923 in Newport, Ireland, Arsenio and Maria Mendonsa, immigrants from Portugal. His father was a fisherman and George left high school to start his trade before enlisting in the navy in 1942.
He served as quartermaster on the Sullivans, a destroyer in the Pacific. He was in charge of the ship in 1945 when an aircraft carrier was hit by suicide fighters. He had to help more than 100 US sailors floating in the water to reach a nearby hospital ship, where he saw nurses taking care of serious injuries.
"From that day on, I had a soft spot for nurses," Mendonsa told the Veterans History Project in 2005.
Mr. Mendonsa was on leave and with a new girlfriend in Times Square on V-Day. They watched a show when the victory was proclaimed and they rushed to a nearby bar before the kiss.
Mr. Mendonsa's girlfriend, Rita Petry, would have attended the kiss, but apparently it did not bother him. They married in 1946, after Mr. Mendonsa's release, and he returned to professional fishing.
She survives him, just like a girl, Sharon Molleur; a son, Ron; a sister, Hilda Todd; three grandsons; and four great-grandchildren.