The Day Kissing Went Wild!

I’m referring to V-J Day – when WWII officially ended on August 14, 1945.  People were kissing strangers in the streets.

Just read an article in American History magazine about this event.  The title of that article was “The Happiest Day in American History,” but I say it was the “kissingest” day in America.  Here are some accounts of that momentous occasion:

In Times Square, NY, “…where people hung out windows tossing confetti on the folks below, who couldn’t stop kissing each other.”

In Seattle, WA,  …”Unashamedly, strangers hugged and kissed one another.”

In Colorado, “Serviceman kissed their girls and then they kissed somebody else’s girls, and pretty soon everybody was kissing everybody else and nobody was complaining.”

In Chicago, IL, “30 sailors formed a line at the corner of State and Madison, kissing every woman who passed.”

In New Orleans, “Helen Dunn, who wasn’t raised to kiss strangers managed to dodge the smooching sailors – at least for a while.  “I dodged about ten sailors.  I was so proud of myself,” she recalled decades later. “And then I turned around and this sailor came up behind me and gave me the best kiss.  A real cute little sailor.  It was a good one.  And then he disappeared.’”

When Alfred Eisenstaedt, a Life Magazine photographer was prowling New York’s Time Square on V-J Day, he had this to say about capturing the most famous photograph of a kiss – of all time:  “I saw a sailor running along the street, grabbing any and every girl in sight.  Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn’t make a difference,” Eisenstaedt later recalled.  “Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed.  I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse.”  Eisenstaedt’s picture of that kiss became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, an international symbol of the joy of peace.

Wish I could have been there that day – the day kissing went wild!

Update:  6/24/10 – Just read in the WSJ that Edith Shain, the nurse in Alfred Eistenstaedt’s iconic kissing photo, passed away at age 91.   Several men over the years claimed they were the sailor in the photo but no one was ever officially verified.