By Kristin Rothwell, associate editor
On Aug. 14, 1945, more than 750,000 people gathered in New York City’s Times Square, to celebrate the Japanese surrender and the end of World War II.
Among the excited crowd was Edith Shain, a nursing school student, along with her roommate who had taken the subway to Times Square when they heard the war was over.
“We ran to Times Square because that’s where celebrations happen in New York City,” Shain said.
According to historical documents, the Times news ticker in Times Square went dark at 7 p.m. and then at 7:03 p.m., the crowd roared in jubilation as the words “OFFICIAL—TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER” blazed across the news scroll.
Elated by the news, people in the crowd were hugging and crying tears of joy, but it was a far different experience for Shain.
“This sailor just grabbed me and kissed me,” she said. “Any female closes her eyes when she’s about to kiss so I never saw the guy, and then I walked away. I was kind of embarrassed. I didn’t say anything about it to anyone.”
What Shain didn’t realize, until a week later, was that her “indiscretion” was caught on film. While browsing a copy of a
Life magazine, Shain, then 27-years-old, recognized herself in what has became an iconic photo titled “V-J Day” (Victory over Japan) of a sailor slightly dipping a nurse in a white uniform and kissing her.
Of the kiss, Shain said, “It was very nice, and of course, it was in the days before you’d scream and go to an attorney. It was the best of times.”
The famous photo was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt, a photojournalist for
Life Magazine. In his memoirs, Eisenstaedt explained that when he saw a sailor running along kissing any girl in sight, he ran ahead of the sailor while making sure to look back so that he wouldn’t miss anything.
“Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed,” Eisenstaedt said. “I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse….People tell me that when I am in heaven they will remember this picture.”
Though Eisenstaedt died in 1995 at the age of 96, the celebrated picture has not lost its significance.
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, Shain flew to New York City where a slightly larger-than-life-size statue titled “Unconditional Soldier” by J. Seward Johnson based on the Life photograph was unveiled on Aug. 11, in Times Square.
Though the sailor has never been identified, Carl Muscarello, 78, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who is one of about 20 men who believes he is the sailor in the famed photo, was also in attendance. He gave Shain a hug and a kiss (this time on the cheek) for nostalgia’s sake.
As part of the unveiling ceremony, the first 20 couples that came in uniform received special gifts, including T-shirts, hats and DVDs courtesy of the History Channel, and the first 100 couples to attend received sailor’s caps or roses to enhance the authenticity of their photo.
“It was marvelous and very exciting,” said Shain, 87, now a great-grandmother living in Santa Monica, California. “It was amazing how much people were so enthusiastic. It was very flattering and a lot of fun being in New York City, my hometown.”
Looking back on the famous photo, Shain said, “The most important part of the photo is that people went out to do their jobs as soldiers so that we could have the freedom we have in America—that people gave their lives so that we could live the way we’ve been living. I think that needs to be brought home more.”
Grateful, but humble, Shain said V-J Day also meant, “I was saved from having to join the Nurse Corps.”
In 1945, Shain was working at Doctor’s Hospital while attending New York University where she earned her RN.
“I always wanted to be a nurse at that time, but the problem was I’m very small and I couldn’t get into the hospitals [because] there was a height requirement then,” she recalled. “I remember one hospital where all of the nurses looked like the [Radio City] Rockettes, so I put my hair up to get height, but no one was fooled.”
Shain eventually took a nursing position working at a psychiatric hospital.
“When I was in charge [there], I started innovating new things,” she said. “I didn’t want people locked up…and I wanted them treated in a more dignified way.”
During her tenure, she insisted on providing patients with forks and not just spoons, and not having orderlies hold patients down while they were being fed.
“I think we’ve come a long way from that,” she said. “I loved nursing. It was very gratifying, satisfying and interesting.”
She eventually left nursing to become a teacher due to the long hours and her desire to raise children, but found that nursing translated well into teaching. She retired from teaching in 1985.
While proud of her years as a nurse, Shain, the seemingly bold nurse in the photograph, waited almost 20 years to divulge her identity as “the kissing nurse” to friends and another 13 years—after reading about Eisenstaedt in the
Los Angeles Times—to write to
Life in 1980 to request a copy of the photograph since she didn’t keep a copy of the magazine in 1945, stating that it wasn’t that important to her at the time.
In her letter, she wrote, “Now that I’m 60—it’s fun to admit that I’m the nurse in your famous shot ‘of the amorous sailor celebrating V-[J] Day by kissing a nurse on New York’s Broadway.’….Mr. Eisenstaedt, is it possible for me to obtain a print of that picture? I would be most appreciative.”
He not only sent her a copy of the photo, but confirmed her identity during a trip to Los Angeles and became a close friend.
“We stayed in touch with letters and he sent me copies of his books,” she said. “He was very nice to me and took a lot of photographs of me, and I visited him in New York.”
Though Shain, to this day, still does not own a copy of the
Life magazine featuring the famous V-J Day photo, she said, “[Eisenstaedt] photographed every celebrity, every head of state and royal family member. I’m not sure how I got in on it, but it was nice.”
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