The Travel Blogger: WWII Sailor In Famous Photo Has Died But Lives On In These Statues

Sarasota & San Diego ‘Embrace’ The Iconic Image & V-J Day Moment

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger

George Mendosa admitted he had a bit to drink and he saw a pretty woman.

So he went up and planted one on her.

His spontaneous moment wound up lasting for years, tho, as it became an iconic moment in American history. That is because famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt happened to be right there at the time and snapped the photo that became the symbol of this country’s ecstatic mood at the end of World War II.

Mendosa, a sailor who had just returned to America, was in Times Square when Japan surrendered on what was called J-V Day – victory over Japan. The photo, showing him kissing a nurse while she was bent backward, looked like the reunion of two long-separated lovers.

But as it turned out, Mendosa just randomly selected Greta Zimmer Friedman out of the crowd. Eisenstaedt was there to record it and a moment in American history was captured forever.

I knew of this because I saw the photo in a WWII book I had as a child but I did not know there was actually a statue of it until I went to San Diego. And there, next to the USS Midway (not a WWII carrier, by the way) as part of a tribute to American servicemen in the Bob Hope Plaza, was a statue of Mendosa embracing Friedman.

“How cool,” I thought, “everyone who comes here can enjoy the moment and can imagine the happiness and relief one felt when the war finally came to and end. I wonder why, tho, they chose San Diego to put this statue and not Times Square.”

I still don’t know that answer so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the another statue in Sarasota, Fla.

At the entrance to a park fronting a harbor is a replica of the statue. Or maybe the one in San Diego is a replica of the one in Sarasota.

There may be more of them out there, too, but that’s the only place I have seen them and I’ve traveled a lot in the USA.

The statues are tall, about eight feet. And they make for great tourists’ photo ops, a picture of a picture that truly was worth a thousand words.

Whenever I see that statue, I give ‘ol George – who died in February of 2019 at the age of 95 – a salute, as well as a high-five. As well as Friedman for being such a good sport about it.

As for what prompted him to approach a stranger in public and give her such a big, everlasting kiss in the first place, Mendosa offered a good and reasonable explanation a few years later to CBS when the network staged a reunion in Times Square.  “The excitement of the war bein’ over,”  he said, “plus I had a few drinks.

“So when I saw the nurse, I grabbed her and I kissed her.”