Kilroy was here!

WWII GIs enjoyed putting Kilroy in odd places, so that no matter where someone came, Kilroy seemingly had been there already. They took the graffiti home with them and Kilroy became a big enough deal that he is ENGRAVED into the World War II monument in Washington, D.C.  My GIs are coming tomorrow, so this wonderful bit of military Americana seems especially appropriate for today’s blog.

In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, “Speak to America ,” sponsored a nationwide contest to find the original Kilroy, offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article. Almost 40 men stepped forward, but only James J. Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts, had evidence to back up his claim.

During the war, he had worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA. Riveters got paid by the rivet; checkers like Kilroy counted and marked off completed rivets in semi-waxed lumber chalk, then reported the total to payroll. When Kilroy found out that unscrupulous riveters were erasing and moving his marks so they could get more money, he began putting “Kilroy was here” at his stopping place, instead of a simple check mark.

To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James Kilroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some of the riveters. He won the trolley car, which he gave to his nine children as a Christmas gift and set it up as a playhouse in the Kilroy yard in Halifax, Massachusetts.

Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint, but with the war on, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn’t time to paint every surface. As a result, Kilroy’s inspection “trademark” was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced. They thought it was a great joke and proceeded to place the graffiti wherever they landed, often claiming it had been there before them.

Before war’s end, Kilroy had been everywhere from Berlin to Tokyo. Then the GIs brought him home where he caught on with the general population and is sometimes still used today. It is said Kilroy is on Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the Arc de Triomphe, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon. Another story goes that, in 1945, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Roosevelt, Stalin, & Churchill at the Potsdam conference. Its first occupant was Stalin, who emerged & asked his aide (in Russian), “Who is Kilroy?”

I hid a “Kilroy was here” somewhere along the treasure hunt stops that Army Princess will have to find in order to get this year’s Big Present. Tee hee!

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
• http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM4F0R_Kilroy_Was_Here_World_War_II_Memorial_Washington_DC
• http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10C11FC3D591B7B93C6AB1789D95F428485F9
• http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/04/15/kilroy-was-here

H/t J-bob