[Ads-l] KIlroy update

[Jonathan Lighter]

Nearly four years later, still no absolute confirmation that a C-47 of the
92nd Troop Carrier Squadron was named "Kilroy Is Here" by June 6, 1944 -
though if somebody invented the inscription arbitrarily and post-facto, it
seems strange that he put it in the present tense. The undated diagram that
seems to be the ultimate source of the information doesn't play up the
Kilroy inscription as anything special.

Kilroy is completely absent from the Gale database "Military Newspapers of
World War II." This includes the well-known paper "The Stars & Stripes,"
which was always looking for light-hearted fillers.


In her article in the _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ (Dec. 9, 1945)
[Newspapers.com], Margaret Maunder writes: "Exploits of Kilroy, the
globe-girdling ghost man, were first reported in 1943 by pilots of the Air
Transport Command,"  which carried supplies and ferried aircraft.

Roger Angell's June 26, 1945, article in _Brief_ (Honolulu) describes
Kilroy as "the latest AAF [Army Air Forces] gag....Kilroy, as far as we can
find out, never made it to the ETO [European Theater of Operations]. The
farthest east he ever got was Jamaica." Angell suggested that air crews
would soon be bringing the phrase to the Pacific for the first time.

So despite post-war publicity, the phrase "Kilroy Was Here" seems to have
been far less ubiquitous during World War II than we've been led to
believe  - and that it was mainly an air force phenomenon.

JL

On Wed, May 5, 2021 at 12:17 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Sadly, I've obtained no response from the National Museum of the U.S. Air
> Force about the ultimate source of the C-47 "KIlroy Is Here" sketch sent
> "decades ago" to the Air Combat Museum in Topeka.
>
> There's a detailed drawing of the plane in David Isby's book on ETO and
> MTO C-47s, but I find no email address for Disby. His book appeared in
> 2005, so the ultimate source may well be the Topeka museum.
>
>  JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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