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The words “Kilroy Was Here,” appeared throughout the European theater during World War II. There is no doubt that the drawing of a man with a large nose peering over a wall was real but what is not so certain are the origins of the Kilroy phenomenon.
In 1946 the New York Times dug into the Kilroy story, trying to find out exactly where it all started. Although there is no definitive answer, the most likely story leads to James J. Kilroy who was a shipyard inspector before and during World War II. As the story goes, Mr. Kilroy would crawl around the interior of finished ships inspecting the work of the shipbuilders. To make sure that people knew the areas had been inspected he began writing “Kilroy Was Here,” on the places he had inspected.
To the troops who then boarded these ships, the writing was a mystery. No one knew why on earth this unknown “Kilroy” had been in the oddest places of the ship. It soon became a running joke that the mysterious Kilroy could appear anywhere. When the troops landed in Europe, the GI’s continued the joke by writing the “Kilroy Was Here,” phrase wherever they could through Europe and then would state that Kilroy must have been there first.
It was a number of months after the allied forces landed at Normandy that the image of Kilroy began to appear along with the phrase. The image portion of the Kilroy legend is even more clouded. Some historians credit a graffiti figure by the name of Chad that had appeared in England for a number of years. It appears that some industrious soldier drew Chad above the famous line and the rest is history.
The Kilroy Was Here phrase and image lived on well after World War II, but always maintained a link with its GI and World War II roots.
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