War separates people, and photographers have always been drawn to the moments at either end of that separation: the last embrace on a platform and the first one after the return. The 61 photographs collected here span almost four decades, from the first months of the First World War in 1914 to the Korean War in 1950. Most come from the Second World War, when picture magazines such as Life sent staff photographers to stations, parks and victory crowds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Taken together, they show how ordinary relationships carried on under extraordinary pressure. Young couples courted in London parks weeks before D-Day, families crowded New York's Penn Station to see soldiers off, and strangers kissed in the street when the fighting ended. Some of these romances led to marriage: tens of thousands of British, Australian and continental European women married American servicemen and moved to the United States after 1945.
The pictures are grouped below by theme rather than strict date. Many dates and places come from the archive captions that travelled with the images; where a caption looks doubtful, that is noted. Photographers and archives are credited wherever they are known.
Partings before the Second World War
Military farewells were familiar long before 1939. These images cover the First World War, the years of occupation that followed it, and the British garrisons sent overseas in the 1930s.
Toronto, 1914
Canadians answered the call to war within weeks of Britain's declaration in August 1914, and scenes like this played out as volunteers left for training and then Europe. Few of the men pictured could have imagined the trench war ahead; more than 60,000 Canadians would not come home.
Seattle, 1917
The United States entered the First World War in April 1917, and cities like Seattle quickly filled with departing troops. This photograph, preserved by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, shows a soldier saying goodbye to his wife at a moment when the American army was expanding from a small force into millions of men.
A goodbye at the train, 1922
This image, held by the German agency ullstein bild, is captioned as an American soldier leaving his girlfriend in 1922. American troops still occupied part of the Rhineland until early 1923, which may explain the setting, although the caption does not say where it was taken.
Königstein, Germany, September 1929
After the First World War, British troops occupied part of the German Rhineland for more than a decade. When they withdrew in 1929, some left behind German sweethearts, as this Underwood Archives photograph shows. Relationships across former enemy lines were common, and often frowned upon at home.
Leaning from the carriage, 1935
British soldiers bound for Egypt lean out of the train windows for a final kiss. Britain reinforced its garrison in Egypt in the mid-1930s, when Italy's invasion of Ethiopia raised tensions in the region. The photograph is credited to E. Dean.
Wives on the quayside, 1937
Another group of English soldiers headed for Egypt, photographed with their wives before embarkation. Postings abroad could last years, and many army wives faced long stretches raising children alone. Credit: Imagno.
A quayside reunion at Southampton
A member of the 1st Battalion, the Manchester Regiment, briefly reunited with his family at Southampton before his unit sailed on to Egypt. The archive title of the image suggests the battalion was returning from a posting in Bermuda. Photograph credited to A. Hudson.
A last kiss on deck
This image has circulated with a caption describing American soldiers leaving for Egypt in 1963. That label is very unlikely to be right: the United States did not send troops to Egypt that year, and the uniforms and ship resemble British deployments of the 1930s. It is best treated as an undated farewell aboard a troopship.
Goodbyes in the Second World War
From 1939 the pace of departures quickened. Stations, gates and docks became stages for millions of private farewells.
A whisper at the front, 1939
A British soldier leans in to speak quietly to someone he loves as he leaves for France, months after war was declared in September 1939. The Fox Photos agency captured many such scenes as the British Expeditionary Force crossed the Channel.
Waterloo Station, London, 1939
While one soldier kisses his girlfriend goodbye, his comrades lean out to tease him. The humour of the moment hides how uncertain the future was; within a year many of these men would be caught up in the retreat to Dunkirk.
Climbing for a goodbye, 1940
A young woman climbs up to reach a soldier leaving to fight in the Second World War. The photograph is held by the State Library of Victoria in Australia, whose troops sailed for the Middle East and North Africa from 1940.
On the platform
An uncredited photograph of a couple saying goodbye at a station before the soldier left for the war. Its date and location are unknown, but the scene is one that repeated itself in every country involved.
A farewell kiss, 1940–1945
This photograph is attributed to Sam Hood, a prolific Sydney press photographer whose archive is held by the State Library of New South Wales. It is dated only to the war years, a reminder of how many such images were made and filed without names.
Martha O'Driscoll, Los Angeles, 1941
The Hollywood actress Martha O'Driscoll kisses a soldier goodbye in a publicity-style photograph. Film studios encouraged stars to support the war effort with appearances, bond drives and morale-boosting pictures like this one. Credit: Keystone-France.
Over the picket fence, 1945
A sailor reaches over a fence and lifts his girlfriend up for a kiss, a playful image from the Hulton Archive. Whether he was leaving or had just returned is not recorded, which lets the photograph stand for both.
Feet off the ground, Connecticut, 1945
Harold M. Lambert photographed this young woman lifting her feet as she embraces a uniformed soldier at a train station. The pose became a favourite of wartime photographers because it captured excitement in a single gesture.
Korean War goodbye, Los Angeles, 6 September 1950
Just five years after 1945, another generation was saying goodbye. The Korean War began in June 1950, and reservists and draftees were soon leaving for the Pacific. This photograph, widely shared from a Los Angeles archive, shows that the farewell scenes of the previous war had simply moved to a new conflict.
Penn Station, New York, April 1943
In April 1943 Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt spent time in New York's old Pennsylvania Station, photographing soldiers parting from wives and girlfriends. The magazine published the series in its 14 February 1944 issue, around Valentine's Day. Six of those images appear here.
Under the station clock
The first of Eisenstaedt's frames shows a couple holding each other amid the crowd. Penn Station handled vast numbers of troops during the war, so private grief happened in very public space.
Holding on
In a second image from the series, the couple seem unaware of the people around them. Eisenstaedt was known for working quietly with a small Leica camera, which helped him get close without interrupting.
The final minutes
Another pair from the same day. Many departing soldiers did not know where they were going, only that it would be far away and for a long time.
A farewell kiss
This kiss before the train left is one of the best known of Eisenstaedt's Penn Station pictures. The series shows not only romance but strain, and it ran at a time when many readers were living through the same separation.
Another farewell in the crowd
A further frame from the station series. Seen together, the pictures make clear how routine these goodbyes had become in American life by 1943, when millions were in uniform.
The same kiss, a moment later
A second exposure of the farewell kiss shown above. Comparing the frames shows how a photographer worked through a scene, waiting for the moment that would carry the most feeling.
Courtship far from home
Wartime moved millions of young people to unfamiliar towns and countries. Some of the warmest pictures here are not about leaving or returning, but about the time in between.
Hyde Park, London, spring 1944
An American soldier kisses his English girlfriend on the grass in Hyde Park. Life photographer Ralph Morse made this series in the spring of 1944, weeks before D-Day, when around two million American servicemen were stationed in Britain. The pictures are often dated 1945, but the magazine's own archive places them in 1944.
An ATS member and a sergeant
A member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army, shares a kiss with a sergeant of the US Eighth Air Force, which flew bombing missions from bases in England. Another image from Morse's Hyde Park series.
Among the sheep, Kensington Gardens
A GI and his girlfriend walk arm in arm past sheep grazing in Kensington Gardens. The flock, an unexpected sight in the middle of London, gives this quiet image much of its charm.
Anglo-American friendship
Life captioned this picture with the gently ironic line that Anglo-American friendship was "furthered by boy and girl meetings in Hyde Park." Not all the attention was welcome at home, where the popular complaint that Americans were "overpaid, oversexed and over here" was widespread.
Strolling couples
The park's paths were full of couples like this one. Soldiers spent leave playing baseball, teaching jitterbug and rowing on the Serpentine, and many friendships turned into marriages after the war.
By the Serpentine
A US officer and his companion walk beside the Serpentine lake. With the invasion of Europe only weeks away, many couples knew their time together was limited, and some held back from anything more serious.
On the grass
The last of the Hyde Park images shows an ATS member and a GI lying in the grass. After 1945, tens of thousands of British women emigrated to the United States as war brides, many carried on ships organised by the US Army in 1946.
A party for cadets, Mississippi, 1943
Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed local hosts serving coffee to cadets from a nearby Army flying school on the porch of an antebellum mansion. Communities near training bases often organised dances and parties for young men far from home.
A soldier and his girlfriend, Texas, 1941
This image is credited to George Strock, a Life photographer who would later take one of the war's most famous photographs, of American soldiers killed on the beach at Buna in New Guinea. Here, months before Pearl Harbor, the mood is still relaxed.
On roller skates
A young woman on roller skates holds on to her soldier boyfriend. Roller rinks were cheap, popular places to meet in the 1940s, and the picture captures the everyday fun that went on alongside the war.
Three couples, 1940s
Three young women embrace their partners in uniform in a photograph from the University of Miami's archive. Southern Florida became a major military training area during the war, bringing thousands of young servicemen to the Miami area.
A present for his girlfriend, California, 1943
A soldier hands over a gift in a picture from the Life photo archive. Small presents bought on leave or sent home by post mattered enormously when couples might not see each other for years.
Laughing in a park, California, 1943
Another frame from the same Life archive set shows a couple laughing together. Pictures like this were part of how magazines showed readers that normal life, and happiness, continued.
Valentine's Day, 1944
A young couple chalk hearts onto a tree trunk. The photograph belongs to the Galt Museum and Archives in Lethbridge, Alberta, a reminder that Canadian towns, too, filled with training airmen during the war.
Sharing chocolate and cigarettes
Life photographer John Florea shows an American soldier sharing a chocolate bar and cigarettes with a local young woman. In rationed Europe, GIs' access to sweets, stockings and cigarettes made them popular, and it also caused resentment among local men.
A French couple, 1940s
David E. Scherman, a Life photographer who covered the war in Europe, photographed this American GI and his French girlfriend holding each other. Liberation brought joy, but also hurried relationships that did not always last.
The picture that raised eyebrows, 1944
When this image of an American soldier and a Frenchwoman kissing appeared in Life in 1944, some readers objected to its openness. Historians have since pointed out that the romantic picture of liberated France was only part of the story; relations between soldiers and civilians also included exploitation and violence.
Evacuated French troops on an English beach
French soldiers evacuated to England, most likely after Dunkirk in 1940, relax with local women on the beach. Many of those troops were returned to France within weeks; others stayed and joined the Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle.
A bicycle ride in Japan, 1946
John Florea photographed a US soldier giving a young Japanese woman a ride on his bicycle during the American occupation. The original caption notes she is not riding on the handlebars, which was not allowed. Around 50,000 Japanese women married American servicemen in the postwar years.
Victory days in 1945
The war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945 (V-E Day) and the war against Japan in August 1945 (V-J Day). Both brought crowds, celebration and a great deal of kissing.
Liberation of Paris, August 1944
An American soldier leans down from an army vehicle to kiss a Frenchwoman on a bicycle as Allied troops entered Paris in late August 1944. After four years of German occupation, crowds greeted the liberators with flowers, wine and kisses, a celebration that came months before the war itself was won. Credit: Hulton Archive.
V-J Day in Times Square, 14 August 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of a sailor kissing a woman in white is among the most reproduced images of the century. It ran in Life on 27 August 1945. The woman most widely identified, Greta Zimmer Friedman, was a dental assistant rather than a nurse, and she later said the sailor, usually identified as George Mendonsa, simply grabbed her. Many now see the picture as a reminder that celebration and consent are not the same thing.
Times Square on V-E Day, 8 May 1945
Three months earlier, Times Square had celebrated the end of the war in Europe. This kiss, from the Michael Ochs Archives, reflects the relief felt across the Allied world, even though fighting in the Pacific was far from over.
A couple celebrating, 8 May 1945
A couple celebrate victory in Europe in a Hulton Archive photograph. In Britain, V-E Day brought street parties, church bells and crowds outside Buckingham Palace.
In a London pub, 1945
A couple kiss amid the celebrations in a London pub. After almost six years of blackouts and bombing raids, many Londoners spent the night out. Credit: Popperfoto.
St. Louis, August 1945
Servicemen and office workers embrace in a downtown St. Louis street as news of Japan's surrender spread. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch captured the spontaneous joy that broke out in American cities that evening.
A victory kiss, Australia, 1945
The Australian War Memorial holds this photograph of a victory kiss. Australians had fought in North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, and the end of the war with Japan was felt especially strongly there.
Coming home
For those lucky enough to return, reunions were often as emotional as the farewells, and sometimes more complicated.
Over the railing, London, 1940
A woman leans over a railing to kiss a British soldier returning from service. The date suggests this may be one of the men brought back from France in the 1940 evacuations, when relieved families met trains across southern England.
Home from the war, 1940s
An uncredited image of a soldier's return. Its simplicity is part of its appeal: a single embrace that stands for countless others.
Jean Moore and Ralph Neppel, 1945
Jean Moore kneels to kiss her fiancé, Ralph Neppel, in a photograph by George Skadding. Neppel, from Iowa, lost both legs after stopping a German tank attack near Birgel, Germany, in December 1944, and received the Medal of Honor from President Truman in August 1945. The couple married while he was recovering at a military hospital in Texas, and he went on to work for the Veterans Administration for 22 years.
A British soldier's return, 1945
A British soldier kisses his wife after coming home from the armed forces. Demobilisation took months, and many returning men found that wives and children had changed as much as they had. Credit: Popperfoto.
Welcomed home at Long Beach, 1945
A soldier is greeted at Long Beach airport in California. The image was reportedly published in connection with the life story of Louis Zamperini, the Olympic runner and prisoner of war whose survival was later told in the book Unbroken.
A grandparents' homecoming
This family photograph was shared online by a grandchild of the couple, showing the moment a man came home from war to his wife. Family albums like this one hold thousands of reunions that never appeared in magazines.
Greeting a Red Cross nurse, 1945
A soldier kisses a Red Cross nurse in a photograph from the American Red Cross archive in Oregon. Red Cross nurses and volunteers served in hospitals, canteens and clubs wherever troops were stationed.
A WAC returns to her husband, 1945
A member of the Women's Army Corps kisses her husband on her discharge. More than 150,000 American women served in the WAC, and this photograph turns the usual image around, with the woman coming home from service.
Reunited in the Soviet Union, 1945
A woman weeps as she is reunited with a soldier returning after the war, in a photograph credited to the Soviet photographer Ozersky. The Soviet Union lost more people than any other country in the war, which gives every reunion like this a particular weight.
Husbands home, 1940s
Several couples reunite at once as returning men greet their wives. Such scenes were repeated at docks and stations across the world as millions of service personnel came home in 1945 and 1946.
Home from France for Christmas
A soldier back from France is greeted with a kiss at Christmas. Being home for the holidays was a powerful hope throughout the war, and it came true for many only in 1945. Credit: Popperfoto.
Under the mistletoe, Portsmouth, 1955
A decade after the war, D. Brown kisses her fiancé Terry under the mistletoe aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS Wakeful at Portsmouth. It is a peacetime picture, but it belongs here as a reminder that naval families still lived with long separations.
How to read these photographs today
Pictures like these are easy to love, but they also deserve a careful look. Many were made by professional photographers for magazines that wanted to lift morale, so they show the hopeful side of wartime relationships more than the lonely, frightening or unequal side. Some scenes were arranged or repeated for the camera, and captions were often written long after the fact.
Several captions in this collection have shifted over time. Ralph Morse's Hyde Park photographs date from spring 1944, not 1945, and at least one image carries a date and place that cannot be right. The Times Square kiss, once read only as pure joy, is now also understood through the account of the woman in it.
What remains is still powerful. These photographs record real people making the most of time they knew might be short. Some couples married and built long lives together; others never saw each other again. Looking at their faces is a reminder of what war interrupts, and of how hard people work to hold on to each other in spite of it.
Sources: Wikipedia: V-J Day in Times Square; Wikipedia: Ralph G. Neppel; Wikipedia: War bride; TIME/LIFE: Ralph Morse's photographs of GIs and English women, Hyde Park, 1944; TIME/LIFE: Alfred Eisenstaedt's Penn Station farewells, 1943. Photographers and archives credited in captions: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ralph Morse, John Florea, David E. Scherman, George Strock, George Skadding, Harold M. Lambert, Sam Hood, Hulton Archive, Popperfoto, Fox Photos, Imagno, ullstein bild, Underwood Archives, Keystone-France, Michael Ochs Archives, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, State Library of Victoria, State Library of New South Wales, Galt Museum and Archives, Australian War Memorial, University of Miami, American Red Cross. Copyright remains with the photographers and archives.
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