George Mendonsa (or alternatively Mendonça, according to certain sources) of Newport, Rhode Island, on leave from the , was watching a movie with his future wife, Rita Petry, at Radio City Music Hall when the doors opened and people started screaming the war was over. George and Rita joined the celebration in the street, but when they could not get into the packed bars decided to walk down the street. It was then that George saw a woman in a white dress walk by and took her into his arms and kissed her, "I had quite a few drinks that day and I considered her one of the troops—she was a nurse." In one of the four photographs that Eisenstaedt took, Mendonsa claims that Rita is visible in the background behind the kissing couple.