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Why Kilroy?
“Kilroy was here” is an American popular culture expression that became popular during World War II; it is typically seen in graffiti. Its origins are debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle became associated with GIs in the 1940s – a bald-headed man (sometimes depicted as having a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with the fingers of each hand clutching the wall.
The phrase may have originated through United States servicemen, who would draw the doodle and the text “Kilroy was here” on the walls and other places where they were stationed, encamped, or visited. An ad in Life magazine noted that WWII-era servicemen were fond of claiming that “whatever beach-head they stormed, they always found notices chalked up ahead of them, that ‘Kilroy was here.'”
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable notes that it was particularly associated with the Air Transport Command, at least when observed in the United Kingdom. At some point, the graffiti (Chad) and slogan (Kilroy was here) must have merged.
Many sources claim origin as early as 1939. An early example of the phrase being used may date from 1937, before World War II. The US History Channel broadcast Fort Knox: Secrets Revealed in 2007 and included a shot of a chalked “KILROY WAS HERE” dated 1937-05-13. Fort Knox’s vault was loaded in 1937 and inaccessible until the 1970s, when an audit was carried out and the footage was shot. However, historian Paul Urbahns was involved in the production of the program, and he says that the footage was a reconstruction.
According to one story, German intelligence found the phrase on captured American equipment. This led Adolf Hitler to believe that Kilroy could be the name or codename of a high-level Allied spy. At the time of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, it was rumored that Stalin found “Kilroy was here” written in the VIPs’ bathroom, prompting him to ask his aides who Kilroy was. War photographer Robert Capa noted a use of the phrase at Bastogne in December 1944: “On the black, charred walls of an abandoned barn, scrawled in white chalk, was the legend of McAuliffe’s GIs: KILROY WAS STUCK HERE.”
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