Phillip Willis

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Phillip LaFrance Willis (2 August 1918, Kaufman County, Texas – 27 January 1995, Dallas, Texas)[1][2][3] was a close witness to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Willis served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and as a young lieutenant he was present at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Because of a back injury he suffered when he was shot down over the Pacific, Willis retired in 1946 as a highly decorated Major. He earned a bachelor's degree in government at North Texas State Teachers College in 1948. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1946 and 1948. He later became a Lincoln automobile dealer, and an independent real estate broker.[4][5] He moved to Dallas in 1960.[6]

Clearly seen in the Zapruder film at the start of the assassination, Willis was wearing a dark colored suit and tie, standing at the Elm Street south curb to the presidential limousine's left, directly across from the Texas School Book Depository.[7]

During the assassination, Willis snapped a 35mm color slide (the fifth of twenty-seven he captured in Dealey Plaza that day)[8] showing the presidential limousine and its occupants, the United States Secret Service agents' follow-up car and occupants, parade onlookers, and the grassy knoll visible in the background.[9]

Willis testified to the Warren Commission that his fifth photo was inadvertently snapped when, just after he had prepared his 35mm Argus camera to capture a photo, he was suddenly startled by a gunshot related noise (the first of three shots he remembered hearing), and his finger that was already on the camera shutter button reacted to the gunshot related noise, then, he quickly depressed the button and the fifth photo was captured.[10] As documented by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, this fifth photo was captured concurrent with Zapruder film frame 202.[11][12] (The Warren Commission and subsequent investigations have all determined that President Kennedy was hidden by a very large oak tree from the view of anyone firing a weapon from the sniper's lair on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository from Z-160 through Z-206.)[13]

In his fifth photo, the image of a still-unknown person can be seen located up on the grassy knoll, seen near a 3-foot-tall concrete wall and near the 5-foot-tall stockade fence. The angled shape of this still-unknown person's outline has led to that person's image being labeled by authors in books and persons working in the Kennedy assassination research community the "black dog man."[14]

In 1978, when Willis's daughter Rosemary was interviewed by investigators from the House Select Committee on Assassinations, she stated to the HSCA that her father became upset when the Dallas policemen, sheriffs, and detectives—who first quickly ran onto the grassy knoll where Phillip thought the shots came from—then ran away from the grassy knoll.[15] In Willis's Warren Commission testimony he stated that shots came from the Texas School Book Depository.[16]

In 1988 Willis stated on camera in the BBC documentary, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," that during his Warren Commission testimony all the Commission wanted to hear about was that Willis heard three shots that probably originated from the depository, but that for President Kennedy's fatal head shot Willis stated, "So I am very dead certain that, at least, one shot, including the one that took the president's skull off, had to come from the right front, and, I'll stand by that to my death."[17]

When Willis died in 1995, the Texas House passed a resolution to honor him.[18]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ancestry.com. Texas Death Index, 1903-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.
  2. ^ Social Security Death Index.
  3. ^ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, p. 492, Testimony of Phillip L. Willis, July 22, 1964.
  4. ^ Joe Simnacher, "Pearl Harbor survivor Phillip Willis dies at 76", Dallas Morning News, January 28, 1995, p. 33A. The Texas House's memorial resolution said that Willis graduated from college before he enlisted in the Army in 1940.
  5. ^ Richard B. Trask, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005, p. 44. ISBN 978-0963859549.
  6. ^ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, p. 492, Testimony of Phillip L. Willis, July 22, 1964.
  7. ^ In Zapruder film frame 144, Willis, in the upper right of the frame, has stepped off the curb and taken a photograph of the presidential limousine. In Z-170, Willis is standing on the curb, above the left headlight of the presidential limousine. His daughter Rosemary, wearing a hooded white jacket and a red dress, is running along with the motorcade.
  8. ^ Before, during, and after the assassination. Trask, p. 108. Willis published a set of twelve slides in November 1964. U.S. Copyright Office, copyright registration #PA0000000068, registered January 31, 1978.
  9. ^ The Kennedy Assassination Photographic Archive, Index of Photographers.
  10. ^ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, p. 493–494, Testimony of Phillip L. Willis, July 22, 1964.
  11. ^ Zapruder film frame 202.
  12. ^ HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 6, p. 44, The Number, Timing, and Source of the Shots Fired at the Presidential Limousine: The Trajectory Analysis. HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 6, p. 121, Conspiracy Questions: Alleged Gunmen in Dealey Plaza. The Warren Commission, inaccurately, estimated that Willis's fifth photo was taken at Z-210. Warren Commission Report, p. 112, The Shot That Missed: The First Shot.
  13. ^ Warren Commission Report, p. 98, The Trajectory: The First Bullet That Hit.
  14. ^ Jerry Organ, "'Smoke' on the Grassy Knoll", 2000.
  15. ^ HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 12, p. 7, Presence of Possible Gunman on the Grassy Knoll.
  16. ^ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, p. 496–497, Testimony of Phillip L. Willis, July 22, 1964.
  17. ^ "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" BBC documentary, 1988
  18. ^ H.C.R. No. 179.

[edit] External links