Unconditional Surrender in San Diego, on the left.
Photo credit:Kevin Harber/Flickr.
The original photograph VJ-Day Kiss by Alfred Eisenstaedt, on the right.
Amid joy and relief, booze flowed, people danced, kisses were planted.
Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt managed to capture the moment in his camera.
Later, Eisenstaedt wrote:
I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures.
I noticed a sailor coming my way.
He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them allyoung girls and old ladies alike.
Then I noticed the nurse, standing in that enormous crowd.
I wasnt kissing him.
He was kissing me.
Friedman also described his embrace as a vice-like grip from which she couldnt escape.
Mendonsa himself admits to having been intoxicated at the time.
Mendonsa recognized himself in the photo and contacted the magazine.
It was many years later before her identity was confirmed.
It was just somebody really celebrating, she added.
The famous image has even been commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.
George Mendosa, the sailor, and Greta Zimmer Friedman, the nurse.
Unconditional Surrender was originally built out of styrofoam for a temporary exhibition in Sarasota, Florida in 2005.
Sarasota bought the aluminum version and installed it in Island Park, on the bay front by the Marina.
It was struck down by a car in 2012, but is now replaced.
But the bronze copy that San Diego bought for $1 million is the most famous.
