Who Is The Famous Times Square Kisser?

The Second World War was over and there I was at high noon, crossing Times Square with a Purple Heart on.

-- KURT VONNEGUT

One of the happier enduring mysteries of World War II is the identity of the sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square during the celebration to mark V-J Day in this famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph.

The Associated Press recently reported that Lois Gibson, a forensic artist with the Houston Police Department, is claiming that she has conclusively determined that the sailor is Glenn McDuffie, 80, a North Carolina native who played semiprofessional baseball and worked in construction and for the Postal Service.

Gibson, who has 25 years of experience helping police to track suspects, had McDuffie dress as a sailor and recreate the pose, this time with a pillow instead of the nurse. She measured his ears, facial bones, hairline, wrist, knuckles and hand, and compared those to enlargements of Eisenstaedt’s picture.

But Gibson’s claims probably will not settle the matter.

In 1980, Life magazine listed McDuffie and 10 other men who said they were the sailor, while three women have claimed to be the nurse.

Whoever the sailor and nurse were, they represented the joy felt by every American of that time. This is one mystery that I for one don’t need to have solved.