In numerical simulation of wave scattering under oblique incident body waves using the finite element method, the free field motion at the incident lateral boundary induced by the background layered half-space complicates the computational area. In order to replace the complex frequency domain method, a time-domain method to calculate the free field motion of a layered half-space subjected to oblique incident body waves is developed in this paper. The new method decouples the equations of motion used in the finite element method and offers an interpolation formula of the free field motion. This formula is based on the fact that the apparent horizontal velocity of the free field motion is constant and can be calculated exactly. Both the theoretical analysis and numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method offers a high degree of accuracy.