Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

KILROY WAS HERE!
Reaganite Republican ^ | 04 April 2013 | Reaganite Republican

Posted on 04/04/2013 9:53:24 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican


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 got into it, I even remember seeing him around public places in the late 60s...




So who the heck 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...


TAU   WarHistoryOnline   K-Bear   KilroyWasHere   h/t Speedunque


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: generation; greatest; kilroy; trivia; wwii
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

1 posted on 04/04/2013 9:53:24 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: AdvisorB; ken5050; sten; paythefiddler; gattaca; bayliving; SeminoleCounty; chesley; Vendome; ...

*** PING ***

Any who’d like to be added to the RR ping-list, pls FReepmail me at ‘Reaganite Republican’

TIA


2 posted on 04/04/2013 9:56:09 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Did Kilroy use Burma Shave?


3 posted on 04/04/2013 9:57:16 AM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Obama is the Chicken Little of politics)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Chuck Norris seems to be the modern day equivalent.


4 posted on 04/04/2013 9:59:32 AM PDT by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ViLaLuz

I know what pic you’re referring to, lol

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3459/3780380005_a44f04dd55_z.jpg?zz=1


5 posted on 04/04/2013 10:12:03 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Thanks for the post. I remember when “Kilroy was here” could be found in every public restroom in America. Now I know the inside scoop.


6 posted on 04/04/2013 10:14:47 AM PDT by Inyo-Mono (NRA)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ViLaLuz

Oops I was thinking Bruce Willis, VLL...


7 posted on 04/04/2013 10:19:59 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

I drew him in all my school books back in the Fifties.


8 posted on 04/04/2013 10:21:45 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican
Hey Reaganite :- I just now made a kwik-n-dirty sketch for you.
Maybe put it in the Sunday Funnies if you think it's funny. :-)

Will make a version later where the Killjoy image is on a block wall beside a seedy looking Obamaville full of tents and homeless.

9 posted on 04/04/2013 10:28:03 AM PDT by Bobalu (It is not obama we are fighting, it is the media.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Thanks, RR : A lot of this I hadn’t heard before. Good story .....


10 posted on 04/04/2013 10:33:55 AM PDT by virgil283 ( ... Mama say : if'n you can't say someting good don't say nutting...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: virgil283

But what differance does it make?

11 posted on 04/04/2013 11:11:53 AM PDT by CJ Wolf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Thanks for posting


12 posted on 04/04/2013 11:15:22 AM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bobalu

Beautiful!
I’ve got to find the right place to graffiti now.
But if they jail old fat white guys, who will post my bail?
;-)


13 posted on 04/04/2013 11:27:47 AM PDT by bigmak007 (They who can't control their own passions, want to passionately control others.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Haha. Many thanks. I have heard this quote all my life and going through my dads old WW2 belongings recently I found a very old plastic statuette of a young pregnant girl that had “Kilroy was here” on the base, yet had never heard the origin of this meme.


14 posted on 04/04/2013 11:50:21 AM PDT by Zack Attack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Someday, someone will discover Kilroy graffiti drawn underneath the furniture in a Mexico City hotel room. I have no idea where it came from. ;-)


15 posted on 04/04/2013 11:53:59 AM PDT by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Similar to the construction crew I worked on during high school. When the last rafter was put up and nailed to the roof ridge, we signed our names to the side. My uncle added the exact time it was finished.


16 posted on 04/04/2013 12:52:02 PM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (For Jay Carney - I heard your birth certificate is an apology from the condom factory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Zack Attack

Heh, I saw one of those on the net Zack


17 posted on 04/04/2013 12:59:21 PM PDT by Reaganite Republican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

interesting


18 posted on 04/04/2013 1:22:20 PM PDT by zeugma (Those of us who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reaganite Republican

Original and current Kilroy site
http://www.kilroywashere.org/index.html
Keeping the Kilroy Was Here memory alive since 1998


19 posted on 04/04/2013 1:44:18 PM PDT by Wolverine (A Concerned Citizen)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bobalu

A+


20 posted on 04/04/2013 2:15:32 PM PDT by Oratam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson