HOUSTON, Aug. 5 A Houston police artist says she has positively identified the sailor kissing a nurse in a photograph that has become the iconic image of World War II's VJ Day.
Glenn McDuffie of Houston, who turned 80 Friday, said he was that young sailor and also has taken a lie detector test to back up his claim, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt was shot in Times Square in New York on the day Japan surrendered and appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Lois Gibson, a forensic artist who has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for her skill at identifying people, took measurements of McDuffie's body and compared them to the photograph. She said the nose was a problem because noses grow during adulthood.
Gibson also had McDuffie embrace a pillow in the same pose as the photo.
McDuffie, who served in the Navy from 1943 to 1946 after enlisting at the age of 15, was in New York on Aug. 14, 1945.
"When I got off from the subway, a lady told me the war was over, and I went into the street yelling. I saw the nurse and she was smiling at me, so I just grabbed her," McDuffie said. "But we never spoke."
Copyright 2007 by UPI
