'Star Trek' Actor 'Scotty' Was Actually a D-Day War Hero, Known as 'Craziest Pilot'

By Amanda Thomason June 7, 2019 at 1:52pm

James Doohan is a readily recognizable face, thanks to his time spent on the wildly popular ‘Star Trek’ movies and series. The Starship Enterprise’s chief engineer wasn’t just good with math and ships in fiction, though: He had quite a riveting past.

Before he was an actor, he was a soldier. And before he was a soldier, he was a young man studying at the Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School in Ontario, Canada.

The young Irish man did well in science and math and soon became a member of the 102nd Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps before moving to the Royal Canadian Artillery.

Just as he had with math and science, Doohan excelled. He was soon promoted to Commissioned Lieutenant and was sent to England.

Doohan was also part of the Canadian forces that stormed the beaches of Normandy alongside American and British allies. Doohan’s division faced two German battalions and a beach full of buried explosives.

Despite this, it wasn’t the Germans that Doohan and his men were worried about. Instead, they were worried about the water.

“We were more afraid of drowning than [we were of] the Germans,” he said in an interview, according to The Independent.

The mines were meant to be tripped by vehicles, so Doohan and his division were able to cross the beach without setting them off. Doohan took out two snipers — but then was nearly killed himself, according to the Daily Mail.

The worst part was that the soldier who shot him six times was one of his own. As he walked to his post, a Canadian soldier hit him four times in the leg, shot one of his fingers off, and shot him in the chest.

Doohan had just gone out for a smoke break and had put his cigarette case, which was made of metal, back into his chest pocket. The bullet struck the case, and the case saved Doohan’s life.

Seemingly not done yet with cheating death, Doohan also became a pilot, earning himself the title “craziest pilot in the Canadian air force” for flying a Taylorcraft Auster Mark IV plane between two telephone poles.

He was reprimanded for it. But he lived.

By 1946, he was home and had decided to change careers. He became a voice actor — and a prolific one at that. For nearly 20 years, he worked on radio and television, but then he became “Scotty.”

He had the unique opportunity to select the accent his character would have. The Irishman had a definite opinion on that topic.

“The producers asked me which one I preferred,” Doohan said, according to his obituary. “I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.”‘

Even throughout his time as the engineer, he did voice bits for other characters on the show, according to his bio on IMDB.

The beloved actor passed away at the age of 85 on July 20, 2005, after struggling with various ailments — some thought to be caused by exposure to dangerous substances during the war — including pneumonia and Alzheimer’s, according to his obituary.

Doohan was proud to have been the inspiration for many young people entering the engineering field, and he certainly made an impact on countless lives of fans, students and fellow soldiers.

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