WFAA-TV Cameraman Tom Alyea describes scene at TSBD shortly after assassination

[Tony Krome]

19 minutes ago, Richard Price said:

Make that four anomalies.  Would a right handed shooter not have the sling mounted on the left?  I know nothing about guns, but seem to recall in some of the movies or possibly documentaries showing "snipers" , they would wrap the sling around their left arm for support while aiming.

I think Dennis has presented a reversed image of the rifle. 

[Chris Davidson]

[Paul Cummings]

Also keep in mind the time when Alyea entered the TSBD. It's not like he went into the building right after the shots.

[Henry Frost]

1 hour ago, Chris Davidson said:

 

Wow, those are some really clear pictures.  My eyes were bleeding  from the material I was working with.

50 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

Also keep in mind the time when Alyea entered the TSBD. It's not like he went into the building right after the shots.

According to his WC testimony Lt. Day arrived at the TSBD at 1:12.  Tom Alyea must have been there less than 40 minutes after the shooting.

[Henry Frost]

3 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

btw…..carcano sights offset to the left due to the bolt action impeding it if it was centrally fixed, the ‘thing’ below the barrel is a barrel cleaning rod for…err…cleaning the barrel.

Also the bullet clip is loaded from the top. Scanning some sites, the scope also had a narrow field of view (FOV) which would have made it harder to track a moving target.  Some say the iron sights on the rifle may have been used.

[Sean Coleman]

Italian made, so if anything like their tanks, which famously had only one gear (reverse), it was bound to be wonky.

[Joseph McBride]

Long before the Kennedy

assassination, the Mannlicher-Carcano was jokingly known

as the "humanitarian rifle" because it 

was such a poor device for killing.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[Michael Griffith]

The fact that the original configuration of the boxes would have made anyone in the sniper's nest visible from almost anywhere on the sixth floor makes Bonnie Ray Williams' testimony even more interesting. Williams said he was on the sixth floor eating lunch until 12:15 or 12:20 and saw no one else on the floor. The motorcade was slated to be in Dealey Plaza by 12:25. Even someone who was experienced with guns would have needed a bare minimum of six minutes to reassemble the Mannlicher-Carcano with a coin. Ian Griggs' experiment shows it would have taken an amateur like Oswald a lot longer.

Of course, we now have good evidence that Oswald was on the first and second floors just before and during the shooting. The segment on this issue in the new documentary JFK Revisited is outstanding. Even the very cautious Anthony Summers has acknowledged that there is strong evidence that Oswald was not on the sixth floor during the shooting. Summers' section on this in Not in Your Lifetime is worth the price of the book.

For a book-length study on Oswald's whereabouts during the shooting, I recommend Barry Ernest's The Girl on the Stairs. A good summary of Ernest's findings is presented in JFK Revisited.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Henry Frost]

5 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

Long before the Kennedy assassination, the Mannlicher-Carcano was jokingly known as the "humanitarian rifle" because it was such a poor device for killing.

A more detailed analysis on "The Humanitarian Rifle" from another thread on this forum here:

 

49 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

The fact that the original configuration of the boxes would have made anyone in the sniper's nest visible from almost anywhere on the sixth floor makes Bonnie Ray Williams' testimony even more interesting.

Indeed, I also found this very interesting. It also opens up the possibility of two snipers working together on the sixth floor during the shooting. Arnold Rowland saw a man with a rifle in the West window, on the other side of the "snipers nest".  Also, from this forum:

 

[Guest]

Watching the m-c video, I've been wondering how much eye relief LHO would have had with that scope (using his left eye ?) ?  Does the m-c kick back a lot ? 

[Tony Krome]

40 minutes ago, Henry Frost said:

Indeed, I also found this very interesting. It also opens up the possibility of two snipers working together on the sixth floor during the shooting. Arnold Rowland saw a man with a rifle in the West window, on the other side of the "snipers nest".

A sniper who stands at Port Arms obviously visible to casual onlookers from the street? A sniper who protrudes his barrel from a window for anyone to see? 

[Henry Frost]

2 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Watching the m-c video, I've been wondering how much eye relief LHO would have had with that scope (using his left eye ?) ?  Does the m-c kick back a lot ? 

The scope was junk. The iron sights were probably used.

 

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

A sniper who stands at Port Arms obviously visible to casual onlookers from the street? A sniper who protrudes his barrel from a window for anyone to see? 

LOL. It does seem far-fetched. If true, it makes one wonder about the security at Dealey Plaza.  Here's an Arnold Rowland interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81SXWTtua0

You're going to love this then: John Powell, an inmate in the Dallas County Jail in Dealey Plaza, across the street from the Book Depository, along with other inmates, saw two men in the southeast sixth floor TSBD window.

What do you think of this picture Groden had enhanced, from the west window:

"The Figure in the West Window.  The Killing of a President, Robert Groden. Page 208."

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Henry Frost

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Henry Frost said:

The scope was junk. The iron sights were probably used.

 

So, the iron sight with his left eye I assume, wouldn't that have caused him a black eye the scope being that close (even less eye relief in that case, it think the m-c had a serious kick-back ?) ?

[Henry Frost]

1 hour ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

So, the iron sight with his left eye I assume, wouldn't that have caused him a black eye the scope being that close (even less eye relief in that case, it think the m-c had a serious kick-back ?) ?

Here's a video of a Carcano being fired, I don't think the scope (which supposedly was misaligned anyway) would have got in the way. Kick-back is subjective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=980vvROu0Ro

 

Edit: my wife walked in and saw me watching this video. She said there was a lot of kick-back and would have "hurt her".  So there you have it..

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Henry Frost

[Guest]

On 8/30/2022 at 6:41 AM, David Von Pein said:

Here is J.C. Day's name as it appears on the butt end of Oswald's Carcano....

 

@David Von Pein wasn't there something about an "S" mark showing in the back-yard pictures on the M-C ?  Flip de Mey at some point got pictures (bought in an auction) and confirmed that specific mark (or scratch) I believe, I haven't seen those side-by side yet, so I'm not sure about what I'm saying here 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans