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Posted on 09/04/2005 2:05:32 PM PDT by Steve Newton
The old sergeant platoon was patrolling in an area they had never been before and one of the goon squad was quick to point out that “Kilroy” had already been here. The age old sign of “KILROY WAS HERE” was chalked onto the side of a burned out building.
(Excerpt) Read more at steven.newton1.home.att.net ...
The old sergeant platoon was patrolling in an area they had never been before and one of the goon squad was quick to point out that “Kilroy” had already been here. The age old sign of “KILROY WAS HERE” was chalked onto the side of a burned out building.
“Hey Pappy,” someone yelled. “I wonder who the original “Kilroy” was?”
“Why, smartass? Do you think I knew him personally,” the old sergeant growled.
“Uh.”
“But, now that you ask, I do know a little about the Legend.”
“Yeah? “Well, tell us pappy.”
“You guys are just like a bunch of kids. How about if I just tuck you into bed at night? All right. You keep your government issued eyes peeled and I’ll tell ya.”
“There are probably hundreds of legends about Kilroy starting in the early 1940's. The one I favor starts with James J. Kilroy, a shipyard inspector during WWII. He chalked the words on bulkheads to show that he had been there and inspected the riveting in the newly constructed ship.”
“To the troops in those ships, however, it was a complete mystery — all they knew for sure was that he had been there first. As a joke, they began placing the graffiti wherever they landed or went, claiming it was already there when they arrived.” “Kilroy became the US super-GI who always got there first — wherever GI's went. It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places. It was said to be atop Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the underside of the Arch de Triumphe, and scrawled in the dust on the moon.”
“An outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Truman, Stalin, and Churchill who were there for the Potsdam conference. The first person to use it was Stalin. He emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), Who is Kilroy?
“WWII UDT (Under Water Demolition - later Navy Seals) divers swam ashore on Japanese held islands in the Pacific to prepare the beaches for the coming landings by US troops. They thought for sure they would be the first to arrive, but on more than one occasion, they reported seeing Kilroy was here scrawled on make shift signs or as graffiti on enemy pillboxes. They, in turn, often left similar signs for the next incoming Gis.”
“The tradition continued in every US military theater of operations throughout and following WWII, Korea and to this day.”
“In 1946 the Transit Company of America held a contest offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the real Kilroy. Almost forty men stepped forward to make that claim, but James Kilroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some of the riveters to help prove his authenticity. James Kilroy won the prize of the trolley car which he gave it to his nine children as a Christmas gift and set it up in their front yard for a playhouse.”
“Hey, that’s cool pappy How do you know all that stuff?”
“Try reading some time kid.” The sergeant barked.
“Now, if you’ll let me finish. There’s even a poem written about Kilroy. Let me see. It went something like this:
Also Ulysses once--that other war (Is it because we find his scrawl Today on every privy door That we forget his ancient role?) Also was there--he did it for the wages-- When a Cathay-drunk Genoese set sail. Whenever longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, Kilroy is there; he tells the Miller's Tale.
At times he seems a paranoiac king Who stamps his crest on walls and says, My own But in the end he fades like a lost tune, Tossed here and there, whom all the breezes sing. Kilroy was here ; these words sound wanly gay, Haughty yet tired with long marching. He is Orestes--guilty of what crime?-- For whom the Furies still are searching; When they arrive they find their prey (leaving his name to mock them) went away.
Sometimes he does not flee from them in time: Kilroy was-- (with his blood a dying man Wrote half the phrase out in Bataan.)
Kilroy, beware. HOME is the final trap That lurks for you in many a wily shape: In pipe-and-slippers plus a Loyal Hound Or fooling around, just fooling around. Kind to the old (their warm Penelope)
But fierce to boys, thus home becomes the sea, Horribly disguised, where you were always drowned,-- (How could suburban Crete condone The yarns you would have V-mailed from the sun?)-- And folksy fishes sip Icarian tea.
One stab of hopeless wings imprinted your Exultant Kilroy-signature Upon sheer sky for all the world to stare: I was there I was there I was there
God is like Kilroy; He, too, sees it all; That's how He knows of every sparrow's fall; That's why we prayed each time the tightropes cracked On which our loveliest clowns contrived their act The G. I. Faustus who was everywhere Strolled home again, What was it like outside?
Asked Can't, with his good neighbors Ought and But And pale Perhaps and grave-eyed Better Not; For Kilroy means: the world is very wide.
He was there, he was there, he was there And in the suburbs Can't sat down and cried.
“Pappy, that was great.”
“ I wonder who the “Kilroy here in Iraq is?” One soldier wondered aloud.
“Pappy, you must be the smartest man I know.” One of the goon squad said.
“Yeah?” pappy said, fingering the piece of chalk in his pocket, a small smile on his face.
“Don’t say much for your friends now does it?”
Steve Newton
Thanks to:
Peter Viereck (1916-) Patrick A Tillery http://www.kilroywashere.com
I learned from WWII vets about the Kilroy of WWII. The advance recon teams. Made things much more streamlined and bracing for the wave coming in. Bless those Kilroys.
first I ever saw of "Kilroy was here" was in the movie "Kellys Heroes".... I never knew what the hell it meant.
Amen to that!
Steve
Well,
Sometimes the Old Sergeant CAN be informative.
Sure interested in when some of our other FReepers first heard of "Kilroy."
Blessings my friend
Steve
(click the pic)
INTERESTING
Thank you!
Steve
I used to read comic books like "Combat Kelly" in the early fifties. "Kilroy Was Here" made an appearance from time to time and I believe that's where I also heard that he was a shipyard riveter. You used to see these signs pop up anywhere after the war(late forties and fifties. A bit of "Americana".
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Good post.he was in Kontum also..lol
Thank you my friend
Kontum? Care to tell us about it?
Steve
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