One of the truly iconic photographs of the world war two era is Alfred Eisenstadt’s Iconic image of a sailor kissing a nurse on VJ Day – the end of the war.  While Eisenstadt, who died in 1995, never said who the sailor was, navy veteran Glenn McDuffie long claimed that he was the “kissing sailor.”  While others also shared this claim, McDuffie’s story was backed up by a forensic scientist, who said that McDuffie’s face matched the bone structure of the sailor in the picture. 

McDuffie was changing trains in New York City, when he heard that the war was over and that his brother would be released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. “I was so happy. I ran out in the street,” McDuffie told the Associated Press years later. “And then I saw that nurse,” he said. “She saw me hollering and with a big smile on my face … I just went right to her and kissed her. “We never spoke a word,” he said. “Afterward, I just went on the subway across the street and went to Brooklyn.”