“Kiss and Tell” Military Times Reviews The Kissing Sailor

Military Times issues dated 23 July 2012 —

“The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo That Ended Word War II” by Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi, Naval Institute Press, 224 pages including photographs, $23.95

The lady in white in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day photograph inside “Life” magazine – not on the cover – was a dental assistant, not a nurse.

That’s one of the mysteries solved in this playfully suspenseful history of how strangers George Mendonsa and Greta Zimmer Friedman anonymously became famous in August 1945 on Times Square. The subtitle boasts that the photo ended World War II when “the photo that symbolized the end” is more appropriate, but the documentation is delicious even when over-dramatic.

**The topic is timely considering the attention given two recent war-related, post-deployment images in the news: The kiss between two female sailors last December, and the hug between a Marine sergeant and his boyfriend in February.

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