Just 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. He 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 that 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 the war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere
on the long haul to Berlin and Tokyo.

To the unfortunate 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 the Arch De Triumphe, and even
scrawled in the dust on the moon.)

And 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 the 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.

The first person inside 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.
Thanks to Joe Schwaab for the above information.
The following link will take you OFF SITE. It is an extensive history of
Kilroy which is an enjoyable read.
Aahhhhhhhhhh Yes. He was here too !