No doubt about it, Kilroy was here
He was the Super GI, a man who served in all military branches
in all theaters of operation during World War II and the first to
reach any objective
– and always left a message to prove it.
He was Kilroy.
No doubt about it, Kilroy was here
He was the Super GI, a man who served in all military branches in all theaters of operation during World War II and the first to reach any objective – and always left a message to prove it.
He was Kilroy.
Those old enough to remember World War II will recall him as an American icon. The ubiquitous message “Kilroy was here” was scrawled on walls, on rocks and in seemingly impossible-to-reach places that made those who followed wonder – and laugh.
Kilroy’s travels rivaled those of Ulysses but he was strictly an American of the 20th Century, and one with a sense of humor. He did not have the height and strength of Paul Bunyan or Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, and may not have been able to outdraw Pecos Bill but he ranked beside them in the pantheon of American mythology.
His origin was simple enough: In a Massachusetts shipyard an inspector named Kilroy scrawled the message “Kilroy was here” to inform other inspectors that he already had checked an area of the ship for the proper number of rivets.
Because troopships were being launched almost as soon as they were completed, GI passengers noticed a number of Kilroy’s messages still extant and speculated upon their meaning.
Speculation soon gave way to competitiveness in seeing who could post the message at the most inaccessible place.
Soon the messages began turning up in the English countryside and in Africa and Italy. Marines hitting the beach on many Japanese-held islands in the Pacific saw it blazoned on enemy fortifications, courtesy of the Navy frogmen who had made quick exploratory sorties during the night.
British servicemen had their own version of Kilroy – Chad – a drawing of a large nose, beady eyes and sometimes a pair of hands. It usually accompanied a message expressing surprise at the lack of something. “Wot? No Beer?” was typical but it was often clever such as that posted by a glider hangar: “Wot? No engines?” GIs requisitioned the Chad drawing to accompany Kilroy messages.
Folks on the home front quickly adopted Kilroy. In defense plants, workers wrote the legend on all the ships, tanks and airplanes they built, knowing that they would be seen by servicemen who would appreciate it.
Even children liked Kilroy and took to finding some of the most unlikely places to post the news of his passage. When girls at an elementary school complained that the message had been scrawled on the walls of their restroom, the principal called an assembly of all classes. She warned that repetition of such behavior would lead to the expulsion of the student responsible. About 10 minutes after the assembly concluded, she found that Kilroy had visited the teachers’ lounge and left his autograph inside one of the booths.
Before the craze died, the message was found on mountain tops, in remote desert areas and even in bottles recovered from the surf.
Kilroy once ranged the world but exists today mainly in the minds of those who delighted in his message.
