KILROY WAS HERE

I recently learned that there is a iconic symbol hidden within the WWII Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.  It is one that is likely familiar to anyone who was born prior to about 1950. The symbol is that long-nosed half-head peeking over a wall with his fingers shown on either side and the inscription, "KILROY WAS HERE" in upper case printing underneath.

I received an email earlier this week that described the origins of the Kilroy was here drawings and I decided that I might write a column about it, especially after I did the research and found that there are several versions of the tale.  Here is the one I received,  probably the most accurate one.

In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, "Speak to America ," sponsored a nationwide contest to find the real 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 to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts, had evidence of his identity.

Kilroy was a 46-year old shipyard worker during the war who worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy.  His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed.  Riveters were on piecework and got paid by the rivet. 

Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice.  When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would erase the mark.

Later on, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters.

One day Kilroy's boss called him into his office.  The foreman was upset about all the wages being paid to riveters, and asked him to investigate.  It was then that Kilroy realized what had been going on.

The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn't lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk.  He continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but added 'KILROY WAS HERE' in king-sized letters next to the check, and eventually added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence and that became part of the Kilroy message.  Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks.

Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint.  With the war on, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn't time to paint them.

 

As a result, Kilroy's inspection "trademark" was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced.  His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and spread it all over Europe and the South Pacific.  Before war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere on the long hauls to Berlin and Tokyo. 

To the troops outbound in those ships, however, he was a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that someone named Kilroy had "been there first."

As a joke, U.S. servicemen began placing the graffiti wherever they landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived.

Kilroy became the U.S. super-GI who had always "already been" wherever GIs went.  It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places imaginable (it is said to be atop Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the underside of  the Arc de Triomphe, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon).

As the war went on, the legend grew.  Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GI's there).  On one occasion, however, they reported seeing enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo! 

In 1945, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the Potsdam conference.  Its' first occupant was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), "Who is Kilroy?"

To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James Kilroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some of the riveters.  He won the 50-foot-long trolley car, which he attached to his house to accommodate six of his nine children, thus solving a housing crisis for the family.

So, now you know the rest of the story.

Well, not quite... Some of the other tales of the origins are included in a website called

kilroywashere.org,  which details them all.  Even the urban legend truth checkers, snopes.com, straightdope.com and truthorfiction.com have given their opinions of the authenticity.  I guess Kilroy will be 'here', wherever 'here' is, forever!