They were supposed to be dead. Enemy bullets wiped out the photographer’s World War I regiment at Flanders. Nazis exterminated the Jewish woman’s family in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Typhoon Cobra drowned the sailor’s World War II mates in the Pacific Ocean. Despite forces that schemed to kill them all, somehow the German photographer, the Austrian Jew, and the American sailor lived to cross paths in Times Square, New York, on the day Japan surrendered to the United States.
On that V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day), in the nation’s crossroads, the assertive sailor did not properly introduce himself to a woman he assumed to be a nurse. She did not invite his approach. None of that mattered. The Navy man swooped in and kissed her anyway. He held her tight for several seconds, as if not wanting to let a hard-earned victory slip away. Before he released her, many people surrounded the couple and took notice of the sailor’s stylish caress and the nurse’s flexible torso. One person in that crowd had a Leica camera hanging from his neck. Without conscious thought or a second’s hesitation, he lifted the camera to eye level and directed the lens at the entwined couple. He clicked the shutter closed four consecutive times. One of these pictures came to epitomize World War II’s triumphant end.
For years people gazed at the V-J Day photo and marveled at what they saw. But they didn’t all see the same thing. Many people were reminded of war and peace. Some imagined love or lust. Still others sensed relief and exhilaration. No matter how the photograph affected them, as time passed admirers grew increasingly curious about the sailor’s and nurse’s identities. For years no caption ever mentioned either’s name, and a decades-long mystery was the result. While many people tried to crack the case, most investigations concluded with something along the lines of, “I’m the sailor.”
Adding to the kissers’ anonymity, for sixty-three years the photographer’s iconic picture went untitled. Though often referenced as “The Kiss,” “The Sailor and the Nurse,” or “The Kissing Sailor,” not until 2008 did LIFE: The Classic Collection christen its aged offspring. The informal blessing amounted to, “Best to just call it, V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.”1 The unceremonious anointing did not extend to the photographed sailor and the woman dressed in white. Even after sixty-five years, both remained nameless. LIFE never shared publicly who they thought might be their kissing sailor.
To be fair, executives at LIFE could argue persuasively they had no responsibility to tag their famous photograph’s paramours. But their contention ignores the essence of the whole mission. Naming the sailor and nurse is not so much a line of reasoning, but rather a matter of soul. LIFE had an obligation to the historical record, as well as to the two national treasures in their cherished photo. It turned its back on both history and the photo’s principals. Perhaps worse, it neglected its sacred mission. It was the magazine that promised to show the world. And almost always, it did that. But with V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, it lost sight of its charge. Instead of showing and sharing, for years it buried a story most worthy of the celebrated image.
In 1986, news anchor Ted Koppel unearthed and shared what he believed to be the long, lost account of LIFE’s famous photograph. In the documentary 45/85: America and the World since World War II, Koppel proclaimed Marvin Kingsbury the kissing sailor. The segment’s short clip shows Kingsbury pointing up to the news ticker in Times Square, declaring, “The Japs have surrendered . . . flashed on there.” Kingsbury then explained, “I met the girl coming across the street right here, grabbed her, put my foot before her. Right down.” Kingsbury’s delivery convinced Koppel that the former sailor’s claim rang true.
No doubt, thousands of Americans trusted the popular news commentator’s declared opinion. Still, something about Kingsbury’s story just didn’t seem right. As Kingsbury demonstrated his technique for putting the nurse “right down,” his mannerisms better suited a construction worker digging a ditch, rather than a sailor embracing the woman in the famed celebratory hold and kiss. At best, his explanation of the lead-up emphasized the predictable. At worst, his rendition came across as a concocted story from more than forty years ago. V-J Day, 1945, Times Square deserved a better story.
As it turned out, Kingsbury had a lot of competition. Years earlier, many World War II sailors, a Coast Guard seaman, two home-front nurses, and a dental assistant claimed key roles in the famous photograph. Their campaigns for recognition had turned contentious. Exchanges got ugly. Controversy brewed. And the battling had just begun. Later, more contenders entered the fray.
Most of the campaigning sailors and home-front women had convincing proof to back up their claims. But LIFE had the power. And without LIFE’s blessing, no kissing sailor or nurse could hope to win over the masses to their version of that V-J Day from so long ago. As the years passed, arguments in favor of one kissing sailor candidate over another succeeded only in knotting the mystery tighter. For more than sixty-five years the mystery remained, while LIFE watched.
The search for the kissing sailor is not an exclusive undertaking. Some of the forthcoming findings have existed for consideration for years. And most of the determinations unique to this book could have been discovered decades earlier. Well over a half century ago, a photographer and his Leica camera made plainly visible almost everything needed to make a positive identification of the kissing sailor and offer a convincing take on the nurse he kissed. All one had to do was look—really look—not just watch.
The kissing sailor and the woman dressed in white in Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day, 1945, Times Square still walk among us. And while the scene they created appears so familiar to most, we know far too little. Against all the odds, and maybe with fate’s forces at their backs, two strangers traversed the world’s most popular square on the day history’s most destructive war ended. Without rehearsal or intent, they communicated what the climax of a victorious war felt like. The particulars of that saga inspire the human spirit. Proof of their part in that iconic photo persuades the inquisitive. Treatment of their claims upsets the fair-minded. Forces beyond their control have denied them their due far too long. Their story, most worthy of the celebrated image, will finally be told.