James Doohan aka "Scotty"
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Military Service
At the beginning of the
Second World War, Doohan joined the
Royal Canadian Artillery. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the 13th Field Artillery Regiment of the
3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Doohan went to the United Kingdom in 1940 for training. His first combat was the invasion of
Normandy at
Juno Beach on
D-Day. Shooting two
snipers, Doohan led his men to higher ground through a field of
anti-tank mines, where they took defensive positions for the night. Crossing between command posts at 11:30 that night, Doohan was hit by six rounds fired from a
Bren gun by a nervous Canadian sentry:
[3] four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. The bullet to his chest was stopped by a
silver cigarette case.
His right middle finger had to be amputated, something he would conceal during his career as an actor.[4]
Doohan trained as a pilot (graduating from Air Observation Pilot Course 40 with 11 other Canadian artillery officers)
[5], and flew
Taylorcraft Auster Mark V aircraft for
666 (AOP) Squadron, RCAF, as a
Royal Canadian Artillery officer in support of
#1 Canadian AGRA (Army Groups Royal Artillery). All three Canadian (AOP) RCAF Squadrons were manned by Artillery Officer-pilots and accompanied by enlisted RCA and RCAF personnel serving as observers.
[6][7]
Though he was never actually a member of the
Royal Canadian Air Force, he was once labelled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces." A story from his flying years tells of Doohan slaloming a plane — variously cited as a
Hurricane or a jet trainer — between mountainside telegraph poles to prove it could be done, which earned him a serious reprimand. (The actual feat was also performed in a
Mark IV Auster on the
Salisbury Plain north of
RAF Andover, in the late spring of 1945).
[8]
