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First of all, the only thing that can be said for certain about Kilroy is that he was indeed there! His name and often his "peeking over the top" scrawled image began to appear early in World War II and soon spread out over the globe. Whereever the world found American fighting men, Kilroy was there. Kilroy was everywhere. He appeared on shattered earthen walls in the Loire River Valley, inside the paper-foil containers of "Meals, Ready to Eat," under access plates in MASH-era helicopters, and spray-painted on the big guns of Desert Storm. When found in inaccessible areas, the logo could only have been put there by the assemblers. How many of these (which are still being discovered today as WWII vehicles are restored at the hands of enthusiastic collectors) were put there by Rosie the Riveter? Where did this legend, for it is a legend, originate? Here is one version: James J. Kilroy was a shipyard inspector in Boston during WWII. He wrote the phrase "Kilroy was here" to indicate that he had been aboard and inspected the riveting and bulkheads. Newly arriving troops would see the chalk marks and be mystified. Who was this super-soldier who preceded them? The phrase caught the imagination of the young men, and many began to scrawl it on any convenient (and many a not-so-convenient) vertical surface. Now, here's what we know happened: By the time our troops arrived in Europe, Kilroy had come there with them, and the little "peeking over the top" graphic that represented Kilroy soon began to accompany the rapidly-scrawled graffiti. This simple, but charming little graphic was important in the global spread of Kilroy because it could be quickly and easily drawn by virtually anyone. As the war progressed, American blood and Kilroy were left at islands whose names few at home had ever heard of - places with names like Guam, Iwo Jima, and Quadalcanal. Representative of the spirit of the American fighting man whose role was to go and do his job anywhere in the world, Kilroy was there. And, not only did he go there with our soldiers, he got there first! Navy Seal divers found Kilroy scrawled on the sea-facing surfaces of concrete enemy pillboxes -- on the beaches of Japan! At the Potsdam conference, Stalin excused himself to go to the restroom. Roosevelt and Churchill would later hear him ask an aid, "Who's Kilroy?" Who was the real Kilroy? According to kilroywashere.org, a contest was staged in 1946 to determine this. The prize was a trolley car. Forty men came forward, and James J. Kilroy was one of them. He brought some riveters and managers from the shipyard to help him establish his case. The judges were convinced, and the trolley car was awarded to be installed on Kilroy's front lawn as a playhouse for his nine children. Now, what is the connection between Kilroy and Rosie the Riveter? When the U.S. government needed to increase their work force by employing more women, they conceived of the "Rosie the Riveter" advertising campaign. The model was probably a Rose Will Monroe, an actual riveter from Michigan, and the slogan was "We Can Do It!" Rosie became a symbol of women working in the war industry everywhere in the US. These women built the ships and tanks and airplanes that fed the voracious war machine. And many of them were married to absent soldier and sailor husbands. In their "V-mail," they found letters of love, sadness, sorrow, hope - and Kilroy. Kilroy had made it back to America. And from these women workers, these "Rosies" by the thousands, Kilroy was sent out again and again to fight anew. Kilroy was there. I'll close by quoting two excerpts from a poem entitled "Kilroy." It was written by Peter Viereck, a Professor Emeritus of Russian History. (Source: Louis Untermeyer's Modern American Poetry, Modern British Poetry, Harcourt Barce & World, Inc., 1958, p.657.) At times he seems a paranoiac king
God is like Kilroy; He, too, sees it all;
For more information about Kilroy, visit www.kilroywashere.org About the Author Lamar Stonecypher is the publisher of Kudzu Monthly.
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