Do you remember Kilroy?
A great piece of history.
Anyone
born in the 1920's or mid-thirties or who grew up during the war years
of the 1940's knew Kilroy. We didn't know why but we had lapel pins with
his nose hanging over the label and the top of his face above his nose
with his hands hanging over the label too. Some recall it was orange
colored.
No one knew why he was so well known but we all joined in!
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 he realized what had been going on.
Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks.
To the troops outbound in those ships, however, he was a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that some jerk 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 l'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 front yard in Halifax, Massachusetts.
So, now you know!
KILROY WAS HERE! 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 gennuine 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 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 checkmark 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
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 some jerk 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 l'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 front yard in Halifax, Massachusetts.
So, now you know!
