George Anthony Mendonsa (February 19, 1923 – February 17, 2019)
(Fox News) – The 18-year-old sailor shown kissing a woman in New York’s
Time Square in an iconic photo that captured the ecstatic celebrations at
the end of World War II died Sunday in Rhode Island.
According to family members, George Mendonsa was two days short of his
96th birthday when he died at an assisted living facility in Middletown.
Mendonsa’s daughter, Sharon Molleur, told the Providence Journal her father
had fallen and had a seizure before he was pronounced dead. He lived at the
facility with his wife of 70 years.
Mendonsa was shown kissing a woman he never met, Greta Zimmer Friedman,
a dental assistant in a nurse’s uniform, on Aug. 14, 1945. Known as V-J Day,
it was the day Japan surrendered to the United States. People spilled into the
New York City streets to celebrate the news.