[BITList] Kilroy was here

[John Feltham]

G'day folks,
 
While serving in the RAF, it was not uncommon to open a hatch on an aircraft and find that Kilroy had been there before!

ooroo

 




 
Is this an interesting piece of history? 



  
     
 

 



  

  

  

He is engraved in stone in the 
National War Memorial in Washington, DC,   
back in a small alcove 
where very few people have seen it. 
For the WWII generation, this 
will bring back memories. 
For you younger folks, it's a bit of 
trivia that is a part of our American history. 
Anyone born in 1913 to 
about 1950, is familiar with Kilroy. 
No one knew why he was so well known, 
but everybody seemed to get into it.  
So who was Kilroy?

  



  

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. He 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 
he 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 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.



  

 And The Tradition 
Continues...




EVEN Outside Osama Bin Laden's House!!!

  

Share This Bit Of Historic Humor   
With All Your 
Friends! :) 


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