End-of-World War II smooch sculpture lands in Normandy

CAEN, France -- A sculpture honoring a photograph of a kiss in Times Square that captured New York's celebration as World War II ended has gone up in Normandy for a one-year visit.

Cranes and construction crews in the French city of Caen on Tuesday hoisted and locked together pieces of "Unconditional Surrender," a 25-foot cast-bronze sculpture in color of a sailor and a nurse in a lip-locked embrace.

The sculpture by Seward Johnson is based on a U.S. Navy photographer's black-and-white snapshot taken Aug. 15, 1945, according to the Sculpture Foundation, a U.S.-based not-for-profit group that owns the work. It also resembles a famous photo taken by Life magazine's Alfred Eisenstaedt on that day.

The sculpture is to spend a year outside the Caen Memorial, a museum focusing on World War II.