Before I left on that August 1995 afternoon, he signed a photo of Eisenstaedt’s famous photo. The inscription read, “To Larry, Home Sweet Home! George Mendonsa.” That signed photograph hung in my study for the next seventeen years. I looked at it often, and wondered. I wanted to determine the truth and learn of the real story behind the photo. I promised myself I would. And then more than ten years passed. Conjecture continued its reign.

In March 2007, I learned that George Mendonsa had suffered a heart attack and almost died. It occurred to me that he would have left this world without the recognition he sought, and maybe deserved. That possibility bothered me. Twelve years had elapsed since my interview with the Rhode Island fisherman who claimed to be the kissing sailor. During that time he continued to wage a war for recognition. I had watched, from a distance.

Over the next three years I interviewed every major candidate for the kissing sailor and nurse, read scores of articles, reviewed numerous televised and broadcasted segments, and conferred with experts who claimed to positively identify the kissing sailor.

George’s brush with mortality bothered me. No longer could I merely look on. I had to know what really happened in Times Square on Aug. 14, 1945. While in 2007 time remained an ally, I understood the nature of the pact. It was temporary.

Over the next three years I interviewed every major candidate for the kissing sailor and nurse, read scores of articles, reviewed numerous televised and broadcasted segments, and conferred with experts who claimed to positively identify the kissing sailor. During my research, the years since a photographer’s camera spied an expressive embrace vanished. The photographed frozen instance thawed and resumed motion. Individuals relegated to a minor role took on more purpose. In some strange way I felt I had a part in the photo, too – but my limited function involved recording what had happened, and nothing more. The assignment thrilled me.

Once I determined the kissing sailor’s and nurse’s identity, I weaved in the proof with a non-fiction storyline. I sent my idea and sample chapters to numerous agents and small publishers. The feedback was not encouraging. Most, I am convinced, never gave the work a serious look. Some told me that they did not represent that kind of a book. One agent wanted the book to read like a mystery novel. Others thought the story would be better as an article than a book. My frustration grew. So did my persistence.

In 2003, several years prior to my second interview with George Mendonsa, George Galdorisi, a Navy man and author, met Rhode Island’s claimant kissing sailor and immediately picked up on his sincerity, as well as the persuasiveness of his case. Before the two Navy men parted, Mendonsa signed the famous V-J Day photo for Galdorisi, which the younger sailor hung in his office from that point forward. And the years passed. During that time Galdorisi took notice of other claimant kissing sailors’ publicized arguments. None of their cases impressed him like George Mendonsa’s had. He wondered why media treatments consigned Mendonsa’s claim to an inferior ranking to those of other kissing sailor aspirants. In 2009 Galdorisi learned of a study to determine the kissing sailor’s identity. He grew curious, and heard a calling. He knew he could help. Early in 2010 George Galdorisi and I talked – a lot. We saw the case similarly, and heeded the softening click of opportunity’s clock. My mission became our pursuit.

George Galdorisi: As Larry indicates above, I came to this undertaking later than he did – but with no less passion. What intrigues me is how this book was such a “near thing,” that is, had events not come together in the way they did, there would be no book and you wouldn’t be reading this now.

When I met George Mendonsa in 2003, as Larry describes above, I was taken by his story, but that is as far as it went. Perhaps a bit more, first, on how I came to meet George Mendonsa. On that evening in 2003 I was in Newport on business and had dinner at the home of a good Navy friend, retired Navy Capt. Jerry O’Donnell. After dinner, Jerry said, “I want you to meet my next-door neighbor.” I was a bit jet-lagged, having just flown to Newport from San Diego the day before and almost demurred, but as Jerry is a close friend I said, “sure” and went ahead and walked with him the few steps to George’s home next door, where I met George and his wife Rita. As Larry notes, above, I was hooked.

But for years, literally, nothing happened. Then, in 2009, Jerry called me and described Larry’s quest to prove the kissing sailor’s identity. Had I not met George Mendonsa six years previously I most likely would have told Jerry I really didn’t have time to talk with Larry. But, because I had met George and Rita six years previously I was “invested” in the story and asked Jerry to put Larry and me in touch with each other. He did, and after a two year journey The Kissing Sailor is the result.

But importantly, had I not met George Mendonsa through Jerry, on my own, independent of Larry, I would never have linked up with my Rhode Island co-author. When he called me I would most likely have listened to his story, wished him good luck, and that would have been the end of it. That chance meeting with George Mendonsa in 2003 was a vital, indispensable, link in the chain that enabled this book to be written. Call it fate. Call it kismet. Call it anything you like. But without our mutual friendship with Jerry – as well as his persistence – this book would never have happened. My passion for writing also includes fiction, and I’m blessed to have written and published three novels. In my humble opinion this “story within a story” almost reads like a novel – and you can’t make this stuff up.

The search for the kissing sailor is not our exclusive undertaking. Some of the findings fall short of breaking news. What we add to the discussion, while considerable, always existed for consideration. Well over a half-century ago a photographer and his Leica camera made plainly visible almost everything needed to make a positive identification of the kissing sailor. All one had to do was look. Really look. Not just watch.

The kissing sailor and woman in white in Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day, 1945, in Times Square still walk among us. And while the scene they created appears so familiar to most, we know far too little. Against all the odds, and with fate’s forces at their back, two strangers traversed the world’s most popular square on the triumphant day that history’s most destructive war ended. Without rehearsal or intent, they communicated what the climax of a victorious war felt like. The particulars of that saga inspire the human spirit. Proof of their part in that iconic photo persuades the inquisitive. Prior, dismissive, treatment of their claims upsets the fair-minded. Forces well beyond their control have denied them their due far too long. Their story, most worthy of the celebrated image, begged telling – and now it has been told.

In Part 3, the authors describe the reaction to the book and how the photo still resonates with Americans today.