For a few years during and after World War II there was a piece of graffiti that became ubiquitous: a doodle of a big-nosed man, peering over a wall, accompanied by the inscription "Kilroy was here”.

At the height of his popularity, Kilroy could be found just about everywhere: in bathrooms, on bridges, in school cafeterias, on homework assignments, in the holds of Navy ships and painted on the shells of Air Force missiles. A classic Bugs Bunny cartoon from 1948, "Haredevil Hare”, shows just how deeply Kilroy had penetrated into pop culture. Thinking he's the first rabbit to land on the moon, Bugs is oblivious to the slogan "Kilroy was here" prominently etched on a rock behind him.

The Kilroy drawing seems to have derived from a similar "Foo was here” doodle that was popular among Australian servicemen during World War I. About 25 years later, and around the same time Kilroy was popping up in the United States, another doodle, "Mr Chad" was appearing in England. The Chad doodle carried the same “someone was already here” and “someone is watching" connotations as Kilroy.

According to a 2001 article by science writer Bob Strauss for ThoughtCo:

“At some point shortly before the outbreak of World War II, it seems that Foo, Chad and Kilroy merged their memetic DNA and mutated into the classic ‘Kilroy was here’.”

"Kilroy was here" functioned as a morale booster for US soldiers during the war. Landing on a beachhead, they would often see the meme inscribed on a wall or fence nearby, presumably planted there by an advance reconnaissance team. As the war progressed, "Kilroy was here" became an emblem of pride, carrying the message that no place, and no country, was beyond the reach of America's might.

Amusingly, neither Josef Stalin nor Adolf Hitler, two dictators not known for their sense of humour, could quite make sense of "Kilroy was here”. The famously paranoid Stalin was reportedly unsettled when he glimpsed a "Kilroy was here" doodle in a bathroom stall at the Potsdam Conference in Germany. And "Kilroy was here" was inscribed on so many pieces of American equipment recovered by the Germans, that Hitler wondered if Kilroy was in fact a master spy.

As to the derivation of the name "Kilroy”, that's a matter of some dispute. Some historians point to James J. Kilroy, an inspector at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA, who supposedly wrote "Kilroy was here”, as a mark of inspection, on various parts of ships as they were being built. After the ships were completed, these inscriptions would have been quite inaccessible; hence "Kilroy"'s reputation for getting into impossible-to-reach locations. Kilroy's marks would have been seen by thousands of servicemen who sailed aboard troopships built at Quincy.

A quirky tribute to “Kilroy was here” would appear throughout the streets of Sydney in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The hero of those scrawls was Brian Westlake and he: “… is innocent”, “… eats his greens”, “… spoke with French girls who say they know him well”, “… isn’t sure about Presbyterianism”, “… cares”, “… admits that the waters around him have grown”, “… drops frozen turds”, and so on …

Please share your Kilroy/Foo/Chad/Brian Westlake experiences with us online.

Story Idea: Greg Ross, Futility Closet
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References

wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
redtreetimes.com/2023/10/21/kilroy-was-here
futilitycloset.com/2023/11/04/interlopers
Strauss, Bob: "The Story Behind the Phrase "Kilroy Was Here"." ThoughtCo, Aug. 1, 2021
wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/2009/06/brian-westlake-come-home-all-is

Images

1. Engraving of Kilroy on the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC
2. Nose art on bomber
3. Bugs Bunny cartoon from 1948 "Haredevil Hare”
4. Comrades had drawn Chad together with the statement "What no women", the head of Donald Duck and the word "Jampie" on the back of a rain jacket of a Dutch soldier, 1948
5. Nose art on B-29A Superfortress "Raz'n Hell". Kilroy is seen in the top left corner.
6. Shipyard inspector James J. Kilroy in 1933
7. 1947 film staring Jackie Cooper as the unfortunately named "John L. Kilroy"
8. In 1997, New Zealand released a new stamp featuring Kilroy