You were focussing on 388 before I last asked a question, Dr. Humes. Why don't you describe in general terms the nature of the wound which was present at the top of the head of the late President?
Commander HUMES. With your permission, sir, and Mr. Chief Justice, I think I might describe those two wounds together, and describe the defects in the scalp and in the skull in each instance.

Mr. Specter.

That would be fine.
Commander HUMES. Would that be appropriate?

Mr. Specter.

Yes.
Commander HUMES. Turning now to Commission Exhibit 388, where we have depicted in the posterior right portion of the skull a wound which we have labeled "in" or a wound of entrance and a large roughly 13 cm. diameter defect in the right lateral vertex of the skull. I would go into some further detail in describing these wounds.
The scalp, I mentioned previously, there was a defect in the scalp and some scalp tissue was not available. However, the scalp was intact completely past this defect. In other words, this wound in the right posterior region was in a portion of scalp which had remained intact.
So, we could see that it was the measurement which I gave before, I believe 15 by 6 millimeters.
When one reflected the scalp away from the skull in this region, there was a corresponding defect through both tables of the skull in this area.

Mr. Specter.

Will you describe what you mean by beth tables, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
The skull is composed of two layers of bone. We will put the scalp in in dotted lines.
The two solid lines will represent the two layers of the skull bone, and in between these two layers is loose somewhat irregular bone.
When we reflected the scalp, there was a through and through defect corresponding with the wound in the scalp.
This wound had to us the characteristics of a wound of entrance for the following reason: The defect in the outer table was oval in outline, quite similar to the defect in the skin.

Mr. Specter.

You are referring there, Doctor, to the wound on the lower part of the neck?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; I am speaking here of the wound in the occiput. The wound on the inner table, however, was larger and had what in the field of wound ballistics is described as a shelving or a coning effect. To make an analogy to which the members of the Commission are probably most familiar, when a missile strikes a pane of glass, a typical example, a B-B fired by a child's air rifle, when this strikes a pane of glass there will be a small, usually round to oval defect on the side of the glass from whence the missile came and a boiled-out or coned-out surface on the opposite side of the glass from whence the missile came.
(At this point, Mr. Dulles entered the hearing room.)
Commander HUMES. Experience has shown and my associates and Colonel Finck, in particular, whose special field of interest is wound ballistics can give additional testimony about this scientifically observed fact.
This wound then had the characteristics of wound of entrance from this direction through the two tables of the skull.

Mr. Specter.

When you say "this direction," will you specify that direction in relationship to the skull?
Commander HUMES. At that point I mean only from without the skull to within.

Mr. Specter.

Fine, proceed.
Commander HUMES. Having ascertained to our satisfaction and incidentally photographs illustrating this phenomenon from both the external surface of the skull and from the internal surface were prepared, we concluded that the large defect to the upper right side of the skull, in fact, would represent a wound of exit.

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