Journalist Richard Dudman reported that he and a companion noted the windshield had a hole in it when they saw the vehicle at Parkland Hospital. [St. Louis Post Dispatch, 12-1-63 pg.16]
Police Officers Sgt.Stavis Ellis and Patrolman H.R. Freeman were interviewed in 1971 by Gil Toff. Both were in the motorcycle escort preceding the President's car, and they went to the hospital. Asked to describe the car at the hospital, Sgt. Ellis volunteered, "There was a hole in the left front windshield...you could put a pencil through it..." Freeman cooroborated Ellis' account. He too volunteered that at the hospital he saw a hole in the windshield, and he was emphatic about what he saw: " I was right beside it. I could have touched it...It was a bullet hole. You could tell what it was." [Interviewed by Gil Toff 4-21-71 and 4-22-71 respectively in connection with the book Murder from Within, by Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams,1974]
The limousine was flown to Washington and driven to the White House garage, where it was examined by a five man team from the FBI laboratory. Secret Service Agent Charles Taylor, Jr. who witnessed that examination, wrote in his report, "Of particular interest was the small hole just left of center in the windshield." [Commission Document 80, Secret Service Report 310]
In February, 1972, assassination researcher Robert P. Smith interviewed Bill Ashby, crew leader of the Arlington Glass Company team that removed the windshield on November 27, 1963. It was Ashby's recollection that the inside surface of the windshield was damaged. [Robert P. Smith, "Report of Interview of Mr. Bill Ashby, concerning the Presidential car, 2-16-72" as quoted in Best Evidence by David Lifton]
Federal Bureau of Investigations Director J. Edgar Hoover reported: "...the windshield was cracked..."[Commission Document 107 pg.5]
The significance of the damage being on the inside of the windshield and not on the outside is that safety glass is damaged in the direction the bullet is traveling. A bullet shot through safety glass will cause a relatively clean hole on the point of impact and greater damage on the opposite side. Thus, if the greater damage was to the inside of the windshield it would indicate a bullet coming from the front of the vehicle.