MicahJava
Illuminator
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Jim Bishop, The Day Kennedy Was Shot, 1968
Part "The Midnight Hours", chapter "12 midnight" (that is referring to Dallas time, not Eastern Time in Bethesda):
...
The show was over. The audience had dissipated. Roy Kellerman phoned Clint Hill on the seventeenth floor. “Come on down,” he said. “I want you to look at these wounds.” The Gawler group arrived. Joseph Hagan introduced himself and his assistants to a Navy enlisted man. For the embalming, he had Mr. John Van Haesen, Mr. Edwin Stroble, and Mr. Thomas Robinson. They would not begin their labors until the autopsy team signified that its work had been completed.
...
In the autopsy room, the sheet was removed from the President’s body, and Kellerman ordered Clint Hill to make his observations. The body was turned face down, then returned to its original position. Hill was stoical as he noted a bullet puncture at the base of the neck in the back and a small hole in the rear of the head, in addition to the big rent in the middle of the head. He was sent back to the Kennedy suite to stand guard and to file a personal report.
...
The three men were replaced by four. The function of the new men was to restore John Fitzgerald Kennedy to an approximation of serene sleep. In a manner of speaking, this is the most tender and most difficult of services. It is normally performed in secrecy. For Joseph Gawler’s Sons, it would have been easier to take the body to their establishment. The instruments and material would be at hand, and the body could have been returned in ninety minutes.
This was not permitted because Mrs. Kennedy did not want the body taken from the hospital. Understandably the word hospital did not have the note of finality encompassed in “funeral home,” “autopsy,” and “embalming.” It lifted the weary spirit a trifle to think of a Navy officer in a Navy hospital. It postponed a final accounting.
Chapter "1 a.m.":
...
The final abuse of the body was under way. Pumping leads were established under the armpits. One forced a formaldehyde compound through the arteries of the body as a tube on the opposite side accepted the last of the body's blood. Gawler's men were efficient and almost silent. The four maintained their separate tasks. This time it was difficult to keep the hands from trembling. All of the hour had lived in and around the capital with this charmer, this buoyant President. When the sheet was curled off the body, the professionals looked at what was left. Each man kept his features immobile, but each felt the depression of death.
A cosmetician studied the bloated face. Roy Kellerman got to his feet, walked over, and whispered: "How long?" the answer, whispered, was "Not long." He asked again "How long?" An embalmer looked at his wristwatch. The time in Washington was 2:30 A.M. "An hors," he said. "An hour and fifteen minutes." Roy Kellerman strode back to his witness chair and phoned Clint Hill. "Tell the Attorney General we leave about 3:45," he said. "Tell the White House too."
NOTE: Although this book has been described as sloppily written, Bishop did apparently interview the Gawler's funeral home team. Under the Epilogue section, it reads:
...
William Greer, who drove SS-100-X, has retired from the Secret Service. I visited him at his home in Maryland. His wife was ill and it was not a time to badger a man with ugly memories, but he sat and said: “Go ahead. It will take my mind off other things.” The men of Gawler’s Sons were discreet and ethical. Cliff Carter, who sat with President Johnson that night at The Elms, has a long and accurate memory.
Free epub ebook link: http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=7876BAF4EE77C8EAD101485D2FD17C93
Part "The Midnight Hours", chapter "12 midnight" (that is referring to Dallas time, not Eastern Time in Bethesda):
...
The show was over. The audience had dissipated. Roy Kellerman phoned Clint Hill on the seventeenth floor. “Come on down,” he said. “I want you to look at these wounds.” The Gawler group arrived. Joseph Hagan introduced himself and his assistants to a Navy enlisted man. For the embalming, he had Mr. John Van Haesen, Mr. Edwin Stroble, and Mr. Thomas Robinson. They would not begin their labors until the autopsy team signified that its work had been completed.
...
In the autopsy room, the sheet was removed from the President’s body, and Kellerman ordered Clint Hill to make his observations. The body was turned face down, then returned to its original position. Hill was stoical as he noted a bullet puncture at the base of the neck in the back and a small hole in the rear of the head, in addition to the big rent in the middle of the head. He was sent back to the Kennedy suite to stand guard and to file a personal report.
...
The three men were replaced by four. The function of the new men was to restore John Fitzgerald Kennedy to an approximation of serene sleep. In a manner of speaking, this is the most tender and most difficult of services. It is normally performed in secrecy. For Joseph Gawler’s Sons, it would have been easier to take the body to their establishment. The instruments and material would be at hand, and the body could have been returned in ninety minutes.
This was not permitted because Mrs. Kennedy did not want the body taken from the hospital. Understandably the word hospital did not have the note of finality encompassed in “funeral home,” “autopsy,” and “embalming.” It lifted the weary spirit a trifle to think of a Navy officer in a Navy hospital. It postponed a final accounting.
Chapter "1 a.m.":
...
The final abuse of the body was under way. Pumping leads were established under the armpits. One forced a formaldehyde compound through the arteries of the body as a tube on the opposite side accepted the last of the body's blood. Gawler's men were efficient and almost silent. The four maintained their separate tasks. This time it was difficult to keep the hands from trembling. All of the hour had lived in and around the capital with this charmer, this buoyant President. When the sheet was curled off the body, the professionals looked at what was left. Each man kept his features immobile, but each felt the depression of death.
A cosmetician studied the bloated face. Roy Kellerman got to his feet, walked over, and whispered: "How long?" the answer, whispered, was "Not long." He asked again "How long?" An embalmer looked at his wristwatch. The time in Washington was 2:30 A.M. "An hors," he said. "An hour and fifteen minutes." Roy Kellerman strode back to his witness chair and phoned Clint Hill. "Tell the Attorney General we leave about 3:45," he said. "Tell the White House too."
NOTE: Although this book has been described as sloppily written, Bishop did apparently interview the Gawler's funeral home team. Under the Epilogue section, it reads:
...
William Greer, who drove SS-100-X, has retired from the Secret Service. I visited him at his home in Maryland. His wife was ill and it was not a time to badger a man with ugly memories, but he sat and said: “Go ahead. It will take my mind off other things.” The men of Gawler’s Sons were discreet and ethical. Cliff Carter, who sat with President Johnson that night at The Elms, has a long and accurate memory.
Free epub ebook link: http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=7876BAF4EE77C8EAD101485D2FD17C93
