Kilroy Was Here
Almost any veteran of World War II is very familiar with the phrase "Kilroy Was Here", which was found written just about everywhere on every piece of equipment from Tokyo to Berlin.
It all started with a man named James Kilroy who worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts during World War II. His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters got paid by the rivet. Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice. When he 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. Once Kilroy realized what had been going on, he continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but he added "Kilroy Was Here" in king-size letters next to the check. The riveters stopped wiping away his marks.
Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint, but with war on, 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. 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. Before the war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere on the long haul to Berlin and Tokyo. Along the way, someone added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence, and that became part of the Kilroy message.
Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for the coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GIs 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. The first person inside was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), "Who is Kilroy?"
The item in my collection is a small statue of a pregnant girl that stands on a pedestal that bears the legend “Kilroy Was Here”. I personally don’t believe that the statue was meant as deprecating or demeaning to anyone, but instead was created simply as a humorous item to bring a little light heartedness to a war time situation.
It all started with a man named James Kilroy who worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts during World War II. His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters got paid by the rivet. Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice. When he 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. Once Kilroy realized what had been going on, he continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but he added "Kilroy Was Here" in king-size letters next to the check. The riveters stopped wiping away his marks.
Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint, but with war on, 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. 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. Before the war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere on the long haul to Berlin and Tokyo. Along the way, someone added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence, and that became part of the Kilroy message.
Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for the coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GIs 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. The first person inside was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), "Who is Kilroy?"
The item in my collection is a small statue of a pregnant girl that stands on a pedestal that bears the legend “Kilroy Was Here”. I personally don’t believe that the statue was meant as deprecating or demeaning to anyone, but instead was created simply as a humorous item to bring a little light heartedness to a war time situation.
