WWII Graffiti

Self ^ | 8 JAN 07 | Sokol

[Sokol]

I spent some time at an old firing range here at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. We went behind the ranges and took some photos of the "art" left behind by soldiers. I think I have some from 1941 or 1942. They are hard to read, but (I think) very interesting. Here's the link to my site with the photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/ptswann/WWIIGraffiti

[massgopguy]

“Kilroy was here”.

[JRios1968]

http://picasaweb.google.com/ptswann/WWIIGraffiti

[Sokol]

Thank you.

[Old Sarge]

CHECK THIS OUT, GANG!

This is an old rifle range at Camp Shelby, MS. Troop graffiti going back to WWII; check out the link!

[ex-snook]

“Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready on the firing line? The flag is waving. Targets up” Or something close to that and get Maggie’s drawers ready.

[SeafoodGumbo]

It looks like Kilroy is a part of the WWII Memorial in D.C..

[StarCMC]

That’s really cool!!

[swmobuffalo]

Hey, my dad was down there!

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[Berosus]

I’m reminded of a piece of graffiti that one of our boys left at Verdun, France, and was reported by the newspaper “Stars and Stripes”:

Robert Allen White, Chicago, Ill, 1918
Robert Allen White, Chicago, Ill, 1945

This is the last time I want to leave my name here.

[SunkenCiv]

NICE! Probably a unique idea he carried out. It’s a little weird that no one painted the wall or whatever for 27 years. ;’)

[cbkaty]

Fort Travis, Point Bolivar, Texas was established during the Spanish American War and used throughout WWI and WWII....to guard the entrance to Galveston Bay and it's harbors.

It still stands and has few visitors....I believe because most don’t realize it exists because it is a Galveston County Park located on the Bolivar Peninsula.

Also, during the 1900 Hurricane, the only surviviors on Point Bolivar were those that sought refuge in the lighthouse...those that could fit that is...

Note the lighthouse in the background.

[King_Corey]

Very Cool, Thx for posting.
My grandfather was career army, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Wounded in all 3 survived til 1979, died of Cancer, I was 10. I miss him greatly, and never understood him or old soldiers until I was much older.

[archy]

Our old mess hall among the *temporary* barracks and buildings at Ft Knox, still in use 25 years later in 1966, had an elevated rear section, possibly originally meant as a stage or for classroom instruction, as well as a false rear wall, all of which was removed during renovation while we were undergoing Armor training at the time.

Lo and behold, when they pulled the back wall off, they found a mural painted across the original back wall. It dated, probably, to 1942 and to the troops who trained at Ft Knox to go to Tunisia and the Kaserine Pass fight in Jan-Feb 1943 in their M3 light and medium tanks, before the later M4 Sherman entered widespread US service.

It was a desert scene, full-width across the back of the building, showing a scene of rolling desert sand dunes, marked only by arrow-straight tracks from the treads of one of those early M3 teakettle tanks. Except for where the tracks veered away to the next dune over, where they passed across the smashed ruins of the only living thing in view, a crushed palm tree that was no match for the mighty 340-horsepower and thirty tons of American Armored Might. Whereupon, the tracks returned to their original path and continued on to whatever roundezvous with destiny lay ahead for them.

We loved that painting in *our* messhall, and I really hope there's a photo of it in the Patton Museum at Knox, which was not then the outstanding facility that it is now. And of course, I wondered, as we all did, what happened to the guy who had painted it.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Love those funky tanks... Reminds me, I need to get out my copy of Sahara again.