NEW YORK, NY (November 10.2008) – In one of Alfred Eisenstaedt's most famous Life magazine photographs a U.S. Navy sailor grabbed a nurse in a spontaneous moment of jubilation in New York's Times Square and bent her over in a kiss, as America celebrated the end of World War II when Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.
The woman who says she was that nurse, 90-year-old Edith Shain of Los Angeles, will ride in the front of New York City's Veterans Day parade on Tuesday as the event's grand marshall.
In the chaos and confusion of the moment, Eisenstaedt didn't get the names of the sailor and nurse. Over the years several people claimed to be the sailor or the nurse, and circa 1980 Shain wrote to Life and said she was the nurse in Eisenstaedt's photo, Richard Pyle of the Associated Press reports. Pyle says Eisenstaedt visited Shain in California and gave her a copy of the photograph, but was never really sure whether Shain was the real subject of his photograph or not.
Life magazine picture editor Barbara Baker Burrows said the magazine had received dozens of claims from people claiming to be Eisenstaedt's subjects after the magazine ran a plea asking the two to step forward, but that they could never confirm for sure if any of the veterans were really Eisenstaedt's couple.
Pyle reports that at least three veterans still claim to be the sailor and at least one other woman has claimed to be the nurse from the famous photograph taken on Broadway at 45th Street.
This week Shain visited Manhattan and prior to the parade festivities she went to see the musical "South Pacific" and posed for photographs with actors portraying Navy sailors.
