Unconditional Surrender

Today we took some friends to the USS Midway Museum in San Diego. We have maintained a membership there for many years, and one benefit is being able to take two guests with us each time we go. At $20 per adult admission, this is a great deal! Each time we visit the museum, considered one of San Diego's most popular, we find another area of the ship which has been restored and opened to the public. The audio tour is informative and somehow personal, containing taped interviews with people who were actually crew members.

Most people have seen the iconic photo (sailor kissing a nurse), taken in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945, just after the announcement by US President Harry S. Truman that the Japanese had surrendered. It is considered to be one of the most famous photos of the 20th century. The photo was later published in the August 27, 1945 issue of Life Magazine. Most people think that it ran on the cover of the magazine, but it was a actually a full page spread on page 27, opposite other less-known photos of women being kissed in celebration. Neither Eisenstaedt nor Life Magazine ever identified the photo subjects, although many men and women over the years have claimed to be the sailor and the nurse. There was a second, similar photo taken by Victor Jorgensen, a Navy photojournalist, and published in the New York Times the day after Eisenstaedt's photo ran. Since Jorgensen's photo was taken by a government employee on government time, it is in the public domain, and served as the source for Seward's sculpture.

My blip is of a sculpture by Seward Johnson in the park just across from the USS Midway. The original sculpture stood there for about five years and was then dismantled and sent for repairs. Following a $1 million fundraising campaign called "Save the Kiss", a new sculpture of bronze returned to the park just in time for Valentine's Day in 2013. The 25 foot statue is panned by art critics, yet loved by the people of San Diego. I decided not to crop out the people at the bottom, since they lend some scale to the sculpture's massive size.