The field of flow due to a shock wave or expansion wave undergoes a considerable modification in the neighbourhood of a rigid wall. It has been suggested that the resulting propagation of the disturbance upstream is largely due to the fact that the main flow in the boundary layer is subsonic. Simple models were produced by Howarth, and Tsien and Finston, to test this suggestion, assuming the co-existence of layers of uniform supersonic and subsonic main stream velocities. The analysis developed in the present paper is designed to cope with any arbitrary continuous velocity profile which varies from zero at the wall to a constant supersonic velocity in the main stream. Numerical examples are calculated and it is concluded that a simple inviscid theory is incapable of giving an adequate theoretical account of the phenomenon. The analysis includes a detailed discussion of the process of continuous wave reflection in a supersonic shear layer. The College of Aeronautics was founded in 1946 and was granted university status in 1969 becoming the Cranfield Institute of Technology. In 1993 it changed its name to Cranfield University.