In April 1987 George Mendonsa took his first step in amassing a mountain of evidence to link him to the kissing sailor. While George did not know that he had embarked on a long and difficult climb, two decades later he would stand atop that mountain of evidence supporting his part in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.
On that 1987 spring morning, Francis Silvia, who originally recognized George as the sailor in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, contacted his old friend with a news update. This phone message sounded more frantic than the call he had placed approximately seven years earlier. “You’re for sale!” he blurted into the phone receiver that spring morning. Francis had come across a LIFE ad selling a framed V-J Day, 1945, Times Square with Alfred Eisenstaedt’s signature. The advertisement offered the photo for $1,600, considerably more expensive than other autographed pictures on the same page. When he saw this advertisement, George became enraged. He felt exploited. The same company that had brushed aside his claims continued to profit from his likeness.
After looking at—and stewing about—the advertised photo with Eisenstaedt’s signature, George contacted LIFE and inquired as to the price of the same photo with the sailor’s signature. The magazine’s respondent told George that LIFE could not identify the sailor. George raised his voice and declared, “I’m the sailor!” as if LIFE would then just acquiesce to the Rhode Island fisherman’s declarations. If only the mystery could be resolved so simply. It could not.
Infuriated by what he perceived as LIFE’s audacity, George Mendonsa brought a lawsuit against Time, Inc., over the improper use of his picture for their profit.1 Via a court order, George secured the four photos Eisenstaedt shot of the sailor kissing the nurse on August 14, 1945. At the time, most people in the general public had not viewed these photos.
THE BENSON REPORT
To determine if Eisenstaedt’s other photographs of the V-J Day sequence provided more proof of George’s claim to the kissing sailor, his lawyer sought the expertise of Richard Mead Atwater Benson. Richard Benson is a nationally recognized photography expert, a master printer, a professor of photography at Yale University, and Yale’s Dean of the School of Art from 1996 to 2006. He has extensively researched photomechanical reproduction and published three books, including the highly acclaimed, The Printed Picture, which offers an extensive history of image reproduction. In 1987 Benson studied Alfred Eisenstaedt’s four photographs of a sailor kissing a nurse on August 14, 1945, to see if they contained evidence supporting George Mendonsa’s claim to the kissing sailor.
Benson scrutinized Eisenstaedt’s four V-J Day photographs, and subsequently examined George Mendonsa. Benson also reviewed photographs of George Mendonsa produced by John Hopf, a professional Newport photographer hired by George’s lawyer. After a meticulous two-week study of all the photos and George Mendonsa, Richard Benson concluded, “Based on a reasonable degree of certainty, George Mendonsa is the sailor in Mr. Eisenstaedt’s famous photograph.”2 The Benson Report provides convincing proof, based on a number of factors, that George Mendonsa is the kissing sailor.
Benson’s study gave considerable attention to the kissing sailor’s right arm. In Eisenstaedt’s photographs the sailor’s right side is more visible than his left side. Benson determined: “George Mendonsa has a well-defined patch of dark hair on his right arm which is evident in all four of Eisenstaedt’s photographs but most clearly in photograph No. 1 taken by Eisenstaedt. The patch of dark hair exists today and I have had the occasion to personally observe it and it appears in photograph No. 5 taken recently by photographer John Hopf.”3 Despite the patch of dark hair’s stark appearance on the kissing sailor’s right arm, surprisingly no other claimant has ever referenced the area for the purpose of making their claim.
Just as observable as the dark patch of hair on the right arm is a shading difference between the sailor’s right hand and forearm. Benson noted of this subject, “The hands of the sailor in the Eisenstaedt photographs are heavily sunburned, while the arms are not. This is a characteristic of the working fishermen that distinguishes George to this day.”4 During his three-week leave prior to visiting Times Square, George fished with his “old man” almost every day. Referencing George’s activities during July and August of 1945, Benson concluded, “This is a reasonable explanation as to the hands being dark and the arms light or white.”5 Like the dark patch of hair on the kissing sailor’s arm, no other candidate references the kissing sailor’s dark hand for identification purposes.
In his report Benson calls attention to the kissing sailor’s hands, especially the back of his right hand, which is fully visible in all four of Eisenstaedt’s pictures. After examining the picture and George Mendonsa, Benson found: “The hands in the photographs are huge and there is not much question that George’s hands are immense in a similar way.”6 Though Benson’s observation of the kissing sailor’s hand size addresses one of the most obvious physical characteristics found in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, other than Lois Gibson, no other source makes mention of the kissing sailor’s hand size.7
Continuing the focus on the sailor’s hands, Benson added the following two observations in his report: “The pattern of veins shown in the Eisenstaedt photographs on the back of the sailor’s right hand is the same as those shown in a recent John Hopf photograph of George Mendonsa’s right hand.” Benson further notes, “The sailor’s right thumb in Eisenstaedt’s photos bends in a certain way at the second joint that is a distinct characteristic. I have seen this characteristic in George Mendonsa and it is shown in photograph No. 8.”8
23-1/2. Like the kissing sailor’s hand, George Mendonsa’s hand is abnormally large. (Permission granted by Bill Powers)
Considering that the right hand and arm are among the most highly visible physical characteristics available for inspection in the famed picture, the evidence presented in the Benson Report is compelling and of critical importance in identifying the kissing sailor. In laymen’s terms, the right hand is dark, huge, and has distinct surface markings, identified both in Eisenstaedt’s 1945 photographs of the kissing sailor and John Hopf’s 1987 photographs of George Mendonsa. As convincing as those comparisons are, there is even more compelling evidence from the Benson Report to consider. Much more.
In addition to the kissing sailor’s right hand and arm, in his report Benson focused attention on other important distinguishing characteristics. Studying the sailor’s right eyebrow, Benson noted, “Mr. Mendonsa presently has what appears to be the long-lasting evidence of a scar within the area of his right eyebrow. A separate photograph of the subject Mendonsa taken during the time of his World War II Navy service . . . demonstrates what appears to be a scar in the same area and the No. 4 photograph taken by Mr. Eisenstaedt also shows a strongly similar mark.”9 Benson does not reference other photographs for this purpose because Eisenstaedt’s fourth photo offers the best view of the right eyebrow area.
While Benson’s focus on the right side stems from the juxtaposition of the 1945 kissing sailor and the photographer, Benson’s examination of the kissing sailor’s left side reveals an extraordinary discovery. Most other claimants’ commentary about the sailor’s left side speculates on why the left wrist contorts up and away from the nurse’s face. Such remarks rely on unverifiable explanations or questionable story lines. Benson’s finding regarding the left arm requires no elaborate explanation and is visible to the untrained eye. Benson noticed that when the kissing sailor twisted his left arm away from the woman’s neck and chest, he exposed his lower forearm to Eisenstaedt’s camera. Though this observation may seem, at first, insignificant, closer study confirms an extraordinarily distinguishing feature. As Professor Benson explains:
I discovered . . . an unusual bump that appears on the inside left arm several inches below the wrist of the sailor which had not been pointed out to me prior to my examining of the photographs. Immediately thereafter, I arranged to personally examine the same location on George Mendonsa’s left arm and a virtually identical bump is there at exactly the same location. This small bump, lump or subcutaneous growth, probably called a wen in medical terminology, appears very clearly in the present day photograph taken of Mr. Mendonsa’s arm by photographer John Hopf of Newport, R.I.10
Benson’s report goes on to share the significance of this finding. “It is impossible for me to believe that George Mendonsa and the sailor in the photograph could share this uncommon physical oddity and not be one and the same person.” George had never taken any notice of the “wen” and did not think to look for it in the photograph. That Benson discovered the identical markings in Eisenstaedt’s fourth photo and on George’s left arm independent of any prodding from George or his lawyer makes this discovery all the more important to proving the identity of the kissing sailor beyond a reasonable doubt. No other sailor-claimant has ever come forward to present a distinguishing feature even remotely matching what Benson found in the photograph and on George Mendonsa’s arm. The “wen” remains plainly visible on George’s left arm to this day.
23-3/4. After determining there was raised tissue on Eisenstaedt’s kissing sailor’s left forearm, in 1987 Professor Richard Benson found the same bump in the exact location on George’s left forearm. (Permission granted by George Mendonsa)
Professor Richard Benson’s observations of physical markings, aberrations, and raised tissues provide conclusive and seemingly irrefutable proof that George Mendonsa is the kissing sailor in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photograph. The evidence Benson provides is compelling, clearly identifiable, and in most cases unique to George Mendonsa.
One might think the Benson Report would terminate any further debate concerning the kissing sailor’s identity. Sadly, for a host of reasons, it did not. Other experts and authorities either ignored Benson’s contribution or claimed to trump his findings with more conclusive evidence. The new opinions gained media attention and a national following. George Mendonsa had to fight on.
THE MERL EVIDENCE
Fourteen years after Yale University photo expert Professor Richard Benson pinned Mendonsa as the kissing sailor, Michael Cardin, Katherine McMahon, and Jerry O’Donnell organized The VJ Day Sailor Project under the auspices of the United States Naval War College Museum. They hoped to produce evidence that could prove once and for all who the kissing sailor is in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.
To accomplish this goal, the group secured the services of research scientists at the Mitsubishi Engineering Research Laboratories (MERL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The VJ Day Sailor Project organizers selected George as the subject for this investigative mission because they considered his claims to the kissing sailor’s identity the most credible among all the kissing sailor claimants.11
The MERL team members who brought their expertise to The VJ Day Sailor Project were experts in the fields of computer graphics and computer vision technology.12 The MERL scientists had published widely on the latest technology’s use, including a report entitled A Bilinear Illumination Model for Robust Face Recognition, which was presented at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Beijing, China. Led by Baback Moghadam, PhD, and Hanspeter Pfister, PhD, the MERL scientists employed cutting-edge technology that had been awarded honors by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) in an official face-recognition competition.13 Cutting-edge vision technology in the hands of world-renowned vision technology experts created an identity-seeking “dream team.”
The MERL scientists produced a report entitled 3D Facial Modeling & Synthesis of the Sailor in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “VJ-Day Kiss” Photo. Their report’s findings mirrored Richard Benson’s conclusions, but derived from a completely different set of determinants. Rather than relying on the power of informed observation and photo analysis expertise, the MERL scientists used 3D face-recognition digital scanning technology to establish whether the contour of George’s “de-aged” face matched the contour of the kissing sailor’s face in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square. Typically the technology was used for biometrics research, security and surveillance applications, or by law enforcement agencies to age missing children from still photos for identification years after a child’s abduction. In the summer of 2004 that technology was employed for the benefit of correcting the historical record.
The first step in creating a 3D shape of George’s face required Mendonsa to sit inside MERL’s custom-made face spanning dome. Surrounded by 16 high-resolution color cameras and 150 computer-controlled, white LED lights, the MERL scientists collected more than 4,000 digital images of George’s face within one minute. Those pictures were then processed to obtain very high-resolution shape and reflectance models. In addition, the team scanned George’s face to obtain a registered 3D model and skin texture. After some digital editing to remove sensor noise and other scanning artifacts, the 2004 George 3D face was then “de-aged” by “projecting George’s 3D face shape onto progressively refined subspaces of increasing dimensionality (N “eigen-modes”) and selecting the one which required the fewest number of bases.”14 The reverse-aged 3D shape for the younger George was then fitted to a 1940s photograph of George. The scientists then used George’s face texture from the input photograph to create a textured 3D face model of George. After accounting for George’s pose (via an optimization algorithm) and Times Square’s illumination environment (via a global linear illumination subspace model for Lambertian objects), the “mask” was then superimposed onto the kissing sailor in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square using computer graphic image rendering. The “de-aged” 2004 George model overlay blended well with the 1945 image. The MERL scientists’ report provides “compelling evidence” that George Mendonsa is the kissing sailor.15
23-5. The slide from the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory shows George’s facial mask superimposed onto the kissing sailor’s face. (Permission granted by Baback Moghaddam, PhD, and Hanspeter Pfister, PhD)
Despite the persuasiveness of MERL’s findings, some remained less than convinced by the reporting. For instance, famed forensic artist Lois Gibson sees little significance in MERL’s report. When asked about the scientists’ findings on Good Morning America in 2007, Gibson reiterated other factors she felt supported Glenn McDuffie’s claim to the kissing sailor. Rather than address the reliability of MERL’s advanced technology, Gibson replied that Mendonsa had “more of a square head.” Her comment does nothing to refute the evidence produced by the MERL scientists.
Referring to MERL’s findings, Jerry O’Donnell, a retired Navy captain and leader of The VJ Day Sailor Project said, “If this evidence were presented in a trial, it would have to lead to a conviction.”16 While publicly the MERL scientists were reluctant to be drawn into any legal haggling over their conclusions, the Mitsubishi (which includes MERL) news brochure CONNECTions ran a story entitled “60 year old mystery solved—MERL IDs ‘Kissing Sailor’ of WWII.” In the article Mitsubishi Electric referenced the MERL scientists’ evidence that identified George Mendonsa as the kissing sailor as “compelling.”17
By the sixtieth anniversary of V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, one of the nation’s leading photo experts as well as a team of world-renowned technological identification scientists had conclusively proven the kissing sailor’s identity. While that body of work was impressive, the most persuasive confirmation of George Mendonsa’s contention still lay four years in the future.
TRUMP CARD: THE SAUER TEAM’S FINDINGS
Of the four most prominent “kissing sailor contenders,” Glenn McDuffie is the most vocal and widely acknowledged. The reason for his popular standing can be captured in two words: Lois Gibson. Lois Gibson’s opinion on the identity of the kissing sailor benefited McDuffie handsomely, and for good reason. The renowned forensic artist is credentialed and confident. Soon after she came out in support of McDuffie’s claim to the kissing sailor, her arguments gained a faithful following from the press. Many in the public accepted Gibson’s opinions as if they were beyond reproach. As far as they were concerned, the search for the kissing sailor was over. It wasn’t.
Converting Gibson’s flock to disciples of George Mendonsa presented a significant challenge. While the evidence supporting George Mendonsa’s case was substantial, Gibson’s and McDuffie’s disciples thought those findings originated from sources inferior to Gibson’s proven forensic identification qualifications. In their opinion, photograph analyzers and technology gurus were no match for the facial recognition expert who had helped convict more lawbreakers than any other forensic artist in history. Converting her followers required divine intervention—or something just as compelling.
In the absence of a godly source, the conversion called for an earthly authority with greater forensic qualifications than Lois Gibson. That authority had to be well trained in identifying bony structures, able to detect similarities and differences between individuals, and, most challenging, had to determine their findings from black-and-white photos. The investigation required a forensic physical anthropologist of the greatest skill. The quest to find such an expert was extraordinarily difficult. College anthropology department heads provided well-meaning but vague direction. Inquiries to university professors typically wrapped up with similar refrains:
“What you need is a physical anthropologist.”
“Great. Who can I speak with?”
“Ah, for what you’re doing, working off pictures to determine an identity, we are not going to be much help. Hmm. That’s a tough one.”
It was tough. Few forensic anthropologists worked off photos—especially sixty-five-year-old black-and-white prints. When college professors familiar with this discipline did return e-mail requests for assistance, they often suggested a person who might be able to help. Those suggestions all led to dead ends. However, there was one exception.
Several sources suggested Dr. Norman Sauer as the physical anthropologist for determining physical identifications from photographs. His accomplishments and a long list of published articles substantiated accolades from colleagues across the country. Dr. Norman Sauer practices forensic anthropology at Michigan State University. He ranks among the top in his field. In 2007 the American Academy of Forensic Science awarded Dr. Sauer the T. Dale Steward Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Physical Anthropology. In September 2008 Dr. Sauer agreed to conduct a study of the kissing sailor’s identity, assisted by his graduate students, Amy Michael, Jamie Minns, and Megan Moreau. He indicated that the challenge interested him and his students. They understood that their work would make a contribution to history.
The Sauer team conducted their examination over a four-month period, starting in December 2008. They scrutinized photos of popular kissing sailor candidates and studied Alfred Eisenstaedt’s four photographs and Lt. Victor Jorgensen’s single photo from August 14, 1945. They cropped pictures, compared and contrasted facial features, and cross-referenced notes. They showed no interest in the story behind the photo and never inquired about the saga surrounding the conflicting claims regarding the kissing sailor’s identity. Instead, they focused on hairline curvatures, widths and lengths of facial features, and bony structures. While they took note of similarities, differences commanded most of their attention. Different people can share likenesses. Discrepancies eliminate candidates from further consideration.
In April 2009 the Sauer team completed their study. They expressed great confidence in their findings and a willingness to share their determinations with the general public. Because their findings were heavily based on visual determinants, they produced a slide show to demonstrate their conclusions.
The Sauer team’s findings are extraordinarily convincing. Their study provides substantial and persuasive evidence that proves George Mendonsa is the kissing sailor. The Sauer team found consistencies between George Mendonsa’s cheekbones, nose bridge, nostrils, hairline, and ears and those of the kissing sailor in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square. But the Sauer team went further. They put aside those consistencies and went in search of inconsistencies between Mendonsa and the sailor in the photographs. After an exhaustive effort, they discovered no inconsistencies.
Interestingly, the Sauer team found Glenn McDuffie the earliest and easiest candidate to eliminate for further consideration. Inconsistencies between his features and the kissing sailor accumulated quickly. McDuffie’s ear, hairline, nasal breadth, and cheekbone were determined to be inconsistent with those of the kissing sailor. In addition, the Sauer team found no dark spot on McDuffie’s arm. After a few days of study, McDuffie’s inconsistencies with the kissing sailor far outnumbered his consistencies.
The Sauer team’s elimination of Ken McNeel from further consideration was not so easy. They found that Ken McNeel’s hairline, cheekbone, and nose proved consistent with the kissing sailor. However, the team concluded that McNeel’s eyebrows and ears were not consistent with the kissing sailor. Therefore, Sauer and his graduate students eliminated Ken McNeel as a viable candidate for the kissing sailor.
23-6. Glenn McDuffie’s rounded cheekbone contrasts with the sculpted cheekbone of the kissing sailor. (Permission granted by Dr. Norman Sauer)
Unlike his competitors, George Mendonsa’s consistencies with the kissing sailor were not marginalized by inconsistencies. One of Sauer’s team’s more visually apparent observations of Mendonsa and the kissing sailor focuses on the shape of the right cheekbone, clearly visible in both Eisenstaedt’s and Jorgensen’s photographs. Like Mendonsa’s, the kissing sailor’s cheekbone appears “sculpted.” The cheek’s skeletal contour is positioned high on the face with no excessive flesh. The trim face with slightly protruding cheekbone creates a sunken cavity above the jaw. This hollow becomes accented further when puckering the lips as one would do when kissing.
Other Sauer team findings present comparisons of the kissing sailor’s nose to that of George Mendonsa. For this purpose, owing to the photographers’ positions in reference to the kissing sailor, Lieutenant Jorgensen’s picture proves more helpful than any of Eisenstaedt’s four photos. The Sauer team determined that the nose of both Mendonsa and the kissing sailor sport the same breadth between the eyebrows. (Sauer focuses attention to this fact by drawing a yellow caret at the ridge of the nose between the eyes.) Additionally, Sauer observed that the kissing sailor’s nostrils flared out in the same shape as Mendonsa’s.
23-7. This Sauer team slide points out a sculpted cheekbone on both the kissing sailor and George Mendonsa. (Permission granted by Dr. Norman Sauer)
23-8. The kissing sailor and George Mendonsa have the same nose shape. (Permission granted by Dr. Norman Sauer)
The Sauer team’s examinations of the kissing sailor’s eyebrow region also showed evidence that favored Mendonsa’s claim. Employing Eisenstaedt’s pictures, the Sauer team noticed that Mendonsa and the kissing sailor sport the same arch-shaped eyebrows. Their examination of three different pictures of George Mendonsa during the World War II era supported the same conclusion.
The kissing sailor’s right ear garnered much of the Sauer team’s attention, and for good reason. An ear’s shape offers a litany of distinctive characteristics. Sauer and his graduate students determined that the kissing sailor’s ear shape is consistent with that of George Mendonsa. The top right of the kissing sailor’s ear runs north to a pointed peak. The top of that same ear seems narrow in relation to the lower lobe of the ear, which protrudes in a southeasterly direction. Also, though all of the kissing sailor photos offer only angular views of the right ear, another observation of the right ear not offered by the Sauer team is worthy of consideration. The shape of the kissing sailor’s and Mendonsa’s right ear canal entrance is similar to a mushroom with the stem intact. All the previous ear comparisons—the pointed peak, protruding earlobe, and canal shape—strongly support Mendonsa’s claim to be the kissing sailor.
23-9. Ear shapes
23-10. (Permission granted by Lois Gibson)
23-11. (Permission granted by Lois Gibson)
For each examined area—the cheekbone, the nose, the hairline, and the ear—the University of Michigan researchers reached the same conclusion: consistent with Mendonsa. Revisits, crosschecks, and repeated observations solidified their determinations. Regarding the eyebrow and dark spot on the kissing sailor’s arm, they settled on “Indeterminate.”18
Four months after the Sauer team produced their conclusions, Dr. Sauer agreed to review a Lois Gibson finding that she asserted solidified Glenn McDuffie’s claim to the kissing sailor’s identity and eliminated George Mendonsa from any further consideration.
After reviewing Gibson’s commentary and slides, Dr. Sauer wrote of the diagonal ridge on McDuffie’s head, “There is no known structure on the skull that would form a ridge originating from the midpoint of ‘his’ eyebrow. Note that the ‘ridge’ is unilateral. The apparent ridge is all about the light source and reflection. It has nothing to do with a permanent structure. Note that there is an effort to duplicate the lighting in the McDuffie and the kissing sailor images.”19
Regarding Gibson’s claim that “Mendonsa has deep grooves between his frontal and nasal bones . . . similar to skull B,” Sauer counters, “In fact the furrows between the brows on Mendonsa likely reflect the fact that brow ridges continue to grow throughout life and any grooves are probably emphasized by the addition of soft tissue in the area, also likely a function of aging. . . . There is no such groove in earlier pictures of Mendonsa.” As a final comment about the Gibson slides he reviewed, Sauer clarified, “Clearly the evidence in the Power Point you sent me adds nothing to the evidence for excluding Mendonsa or including McDuffie.”20
The Sauer team’s findings offer crowning and compelling proof atop anecdotal, photographic, scientific, and technologically based considerations that point directly—and only—toward George Mendonsa as the kissing sailor. In addition to providing convincing proof that George Mendonsa is the kissing sailor, the Sauer study gave equal consideration to other kissing sailor candidates. Their approach was different from other studies, for they did not try to prove any one candidate was the kissing sailor, but rather set out to determine which candidate, if any, matched up with the kissing sailor’s appearance. Considering Dr. Sauer’s standing in the forensic anthropology field, his study’s open-minded approach, and the details of his findings, there is no question regarding the identity of the kissing sailor in Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.
At the conclusion of the Sauer team’s months-long study, Dr. Sauer reflected candidly on the accumulated evidence in support of George Mendonsa’s contention: “You have quite a case. You could go to court with this.” George preferred delivering the information to LIFE.
