Legends
There are many
urban legends attached to the Kilroy graffiti. One states that
Adolf Hitler believed that Kilroy was some kind of American super spy because the graffiti kept turning up in secure
Nazi installations, presumably having been actually brought on captured Allied military equipment. Another states that
Stalin was the first to enter an
outhouse especially built for the leaders at the
Potsdam conference. Upon exiting, Stalin asked an aide: "Who is this Kilroy?" Another legend states that a German officer, having seen frequent "Kilroys" posted in different cities, told all of his men that if they happened to come across a "Kilroy" he wanted to question him personally. Another one states the entire gag was started by a soldier in the Army who was sick of the Air Force[
dubious – discuss] bragging that they were always the first on the scene; the little man and phrase then began appearing in ludicrous places to indicate that someone had, in fact, arrived prior to the Air Force.
The graffito is supposedly located on various significant or difficult-to-reach places such as on the torch of the
Statue of Liberty, on the
Marco Polo Bridge in China, in huts in Polynesia, on a high girder on the
George Washington Bridge in New York, at the peak of
Mt. Everest, on the underside of the
Arc de Triomphe, scribbled in the dust on the moon, in WWII
pillboxes scattered around Germany, around the sewers of Paris, and, in tribute to its origin, engraved in the
National World War II Memorial in
Washington, D.C.[3]