Kilroy Was Here

 

Kilroy Is Here

Five tracks from 1946-1947

Kilroy Was Here - Tin Ear Tanner [Cliffie Stone]And His Back Room Boys (Bel-Tone) 1946
Kilroy Was Here - Ted Fio Rito And His Orchestra (4 Star) 1946
                              Vocal by Adriana (Snow White) Caselotti and Pinto Colvig                
Kilroy Was Here - Sammy Madden And His Orchestra (Stars Presents)  1946       
Kilroy Was Here - Paul Page With The Masqueraders (Enterprise) 1946           
Kilroy Was Here - King Perry & His Orchestra (Excelsior) 1947     

 

        

The most famous and ubiquitous of the graffiti was Kilroy. His leering eyes, big paper clip of a nose, and impish boast KILLROY WAS HERE materialized during World War II and he lived on for many years.

It has been conjectured that Kilroy was really a sore-footed infantry sergeant who got tired of hearing the Air Force brag of its prowess with the impossible.  He was especially p.o.'d about the Air Transport Command. When the A.T.C. hastened to some farflung, hazardous part of the globe to set up a new base, they found the bold announcement that Kilroy had got there first.

That hypothesis, found in Graffiti, a book by Robert Reisner, and reproduced above is one of the most attractive to me and probably close to reality, in the spirit at least. 

For further reading, Wikipedia has a good article on the subject. And there is a website entirely dedicated to Kilroy here.