On November 22, 1963, railroad worker S.M. Holland was watching the presidential motorcade approach Dealey Plaza from a perch on top of a bridge known as The Triple Underpass.
In this rare 1970 interview, he describes his impression of the gunfire that killed the president.
“I saw a puff of smoke still lingering among the trees in front of the wooden fence. The report sounded like it came from behind the wooden fence,” Holland said.
More about the witnesses to JFK’s assassination:
VIDEO: Was there a gunshot from the grassy knoll? (Feb. 1, 2013)
‘What was going through my mind was that shot was coming right over the top of our heads’ (Nov. 22, 2013)
Missing JFK witnesses: two African-Americans on the grassy knoll (Nov. 20, 2013)
History Matters: What 216 witnesses to the assassination said about the origins of the gunshots.
Regarding the puffs of smoke, some sources say there were no steam lines near the picket fence, yet one of Holland’s videos shows him saying he had to jump over a steam line from the underass bridge to get to the car park and show the spot. The wind was also gusty west-north-westerly. Could that stem line have been leaking at that time? Conversely, if there was a steam line, surely the local ral workers would have been familiar with it and discounted it in their opinions about puffs of smoke? Please enlighten me!
There are ideas that the puff of smoke from near the G Knoll / picket fence, seen by the men standing on the underpass bridge, at the time of the gunshots was either a cigarette or similar, or steam issuing from a steam pipe. The same counter-claims have it that modern guns do not release smoke. I know that modern autos do release smoke on firing though admittedly not as dense or visible as the old black powder weapons. I cannot find anything on whether there is / was a steam pipe in the vicinity of the GK, or indeed whether any puffs would likely have been released singularly just at that time, or that the railroad men on the bridge reporting that smoke would not already have been familiar with steam issuing from that spot and so would have taken that into account when reporting their seeing it. Comments please??!!