[Ads-l] "Who was Kilroy?" June 26, 1945 (in-print antedating?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Kilroy in WW2 wasn't restricted to the Air Corps, at least if we believe
recollections written just after the war.

JL

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 5:18 PM MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY DEVCOM
AVMC (USA) <0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Is Texacts online?  Where?
>
> This page:
>
> https://ufdc.ufl.edu/fdnl1
>
> used to include a number of WW2 Army Air Corp base newspapers, but the
> seem to have moved (or else they are on a different page that I can't find
> right now).  I went through them looking for "kilroy" a few years ago, but
> searching the ADS-L archives doesn't show that I reported anything
> relevant.  Which means either that:
> I didn't find anything relevant, or
> The search feature for the ADS-L archives is not very good.
>
> Possibly both.
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 8:23 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Who was Kilroy?" June 26, 1945 (in-print antedating?)
>
>
> ----
>
> The forthcoming New Yale Book of Quotations notes that the Texacts
> newspaper of the Sheppard Field Army base in Texas posed the question "Who
> is Kilroy?" in its April 21, 1945 issue.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 9:10 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: "Who was Kilroy?" June 26, 1945 (in-print antedating?)
>
> "Who is Kilroy?"
> Sgt. Roger Angell
> Google Books
>
> SG
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 8:50 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: "Who was Kilroy?" June 26, 1945 (in-print antedating?)
>
> A story by Rogel Angell (likely (?) the later-famous baseball writer, who
> was in the Army Air Forces), Brief vol. 2, no. 30 (title page missing, but
> by sequence)   page 18/1 [my elipses] [also in later issues of this title,
> including a letter to editor speculation, July 17 p. 2/3]:
>
> Who is Kilroy?
> Kilroy is the guy who just stepped out of the orderly room as you came in.
> Kilroy was in the latrine....latest AAF gag. ....  [Kilroy 4x]... "Kilroy
> ditched here." Kilroy will be here any day, but you won't see him.
>
> Stephen Goranson
>
>
> PS On "in-print":
> Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus (NY, 1947) page 210 reports seeing,
> near Christmastime 1944:
>
> On the black, charred walls of an abandoned farm [near Bastogne] scrawled
> in white chalk, was the legend of McAuliffe's GI's: KILROY WAS STUCK HERE.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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