Origin of the Kilroy

During WWII, the Kilroy graffiti was drawn by American GIs in battlefields around the world.The American Transit Association held a contest in 1946 to try to find the origin of the Kilroy cartoon. One possibility which surfaced was the work of an American shipyard inspector named Kilroy, who won the competition. He marked the areas of the ship which he had inspected with "Kilroy was here" so that the riveters would not erase his check marks. The slogan could have been picked up later by GIs who came across the slogan in various parts of the ship.