I’ve read that in WW2 troops would scrawl the little guy peaking over the edge “Killroy” in locations they had just arrived at, and claim it was there when they got there. So yeah, oldest meme in modern history.
The other one was manufacturing and engineering teams ‘back home’ would scrawl the Kilroy on parts, like while ships or tanks were being assembled, that would otherwise be inaccessible - which meant that when that thing was hit, or taken apart for maintenance closer to the front, Kilroy was like, inside the sealed-up wall or at the bottom of the engine compartment.
In both your example and this one - both growing the myth that no matter where you went, Kilroy had been there first.
According to my grandpa, it was a myth that they used to feed the new guys and green squads, like a Santa myth, and putting on “genuine belief” in the Kilroy myth was as much of a running joke as the myth itself was. He claimed servicemen were also constantly trying to get commanding officers to unwittingly participate, by doing stuff like submitting paperwork signed Kilroy or that referenced him already being somewhere when troops liberated it - in the hopes that report or news tidbit would be one that COs shared as announcements.
Thanks for the fantastic reply, I learned a lot I didn’t know!
The oldest meme, you can tell because they didn’t have paper yet so they had to put it in stone
At the dawn of time, in the primordial fires of creation, Kilroy was there.
Must be hard to be named Will or Roy.
People always trying to fire at you and kill you.
Damn dude, I’m gonna have to scrawl “for a good time call unga bunga” on a cave wall to beat this meme’s age.
Guys named Roy: “Oh man… I hope Kilroy doesn’t come here.”
