There’s no particular elaboration required about the strife and pain war causes to those swarmed by it, most of all the soldiers battling through it. Regardless, there is one emotion that transcends the grief of war and binds people together in a loving embrace. Whether it’s a soldier bidding his beloved goodbye or a long-awaited reunion, these moments captured on film are heart warming.
Here are 20 photographs of soldiers embracing their better halves in the midst of a world thrown into war:
1. A sailor who couldn’t wait, and leaned over the fence for his reunion back in 1945.
2. A New York couple’s goodbye to each other before he heads to the front in 1943.
3. A lady is held up for a goodbye kiss for a soldier heading to WWII in 1940.
4. A soldier of the 1st Battalion of The Manchester Regiment is allowed a short reunion before the unit moves on to Egypt.
5. A memory from the First World War of a soldier and his wife in 1917.
6. Soldiers aboard a train departing for Egypt in 1935.
7. A goodbye kiss for the maiden before this soldier left for the Korean War. Dated September 6, 1950.
8. The iconic “V-J Day at Times Square” photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945.
9. A reunion at the Connecticut train station in 1945.
10. A British soldier leans over the railing for a kiss as he returns from WWII, in 1940.
11. An American soldier with his English lady friend celebrate the end of war in 1945.
12. A farewell embrace at New York’s Penn Station, 1943.
13. Two soldiers celebrate the end of WWII in 1945.
14. British soldier returning home to his wife in 1945.
15. Servicemen celebrate rumours of surrender in 1945, with a kiss.
16. A couple celebrate the end of World War II in a pub in London in 1945.
17. Actress Martha O’driscoll kisses a soldier goodbye in 1941.
18. Friends heckle a soldier as he kisses his girlfriend goodbye before leaving for WWII at the Waterloo Station in London in 1939.
19. A British soldier kisses his German lady of love before leaving for England from Konigstein, Germany, in 1929.
20. A soldier returning from France during The Second World War is greeted at the doorstep to his house.
