Golden
Administrator
As first dates go, Rita Petry thought this one was pretty great: a beautiful summer afternoon in the city, a matinee at Radio City Music Hall, drinks after, followed by a passionate, soon-to-be-iconic kiss.
Well, maybe not the kiss: Her handsome young suitor, it turns out, planted that on another woman.
She says the photo, like the kiss, has never been an issue in their marriage. “I never gave too much thought to it,” she says. “By the time I knew about it, I’d been married for years.”
So on this joyous and unbelievable afternoon, George ran from Rita — the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen — grabbed the first nurse he saw, spun her around, dipped her and kissed her. Rita was just steps behind them, and in the photo she’s beaming.
“A lot of people want to know what I was thinking,” she says. “It was a happy day; I was grinning like an idiot. The kiss really didn’t bother me at all. If I had been engaged, maybe.”
The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.
Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.
She isn’t sure how long she was standing there; maybe minutes. “And then I was grabbed,” she says. “That man was very strong. I wasn’t kissing him. He was kissing me.”
Just as suddenly, he let her go. George stumbled off towards the subway, Rita trailing behind, and Greta walked back to her office. George and Rita never discussed the kiss, nor did Greta tell anyone what had happened to her.
http://nypost.com/2012/06/17/the-true-story-behind-the-iconic-v-j-day-sailor-and-nurse-smooch/
Well, maybe not the kiss: Her handsome young suitor, it turns out, planted that on another woman.
She says the photo, like the kiss, has never been an issue in their marriage. “I never gave too much thought to it,” she says. “By the time I knew about it, I’d been married for years.”
So on this joyous and unbelievable afternoon, George ran from Rita — the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen — grabbed the first nurse he saw, spun her around, dipped her and kissed her. Rita was just steps behind them, and in the photo she’s beaming.
“A lot of people want to know what I was thinking,” she says. “It was a happy day; I was grinning like an idiot. The kiss really didn’t bother me at all. If I had been engaged, maybe.”
The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.
Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.
She isn’t sure how long she was standing there; maybe minutes. “And then I was grabbed,” she says. “That man was very strong. I wasn’t kissing him. He was kissing me.”
Just as suddenly, he let her go. George stumbled off towards the subway, Rita trailing behind, and Greta walked back to her office. George and Rita never discussed the kiss, nor did Greta tell anyone what had happened to her.
http://nypost.com/2012/06/17/the-true-story-behind-the-iconic-v-j-day-sailor-and-nurse-smooch/