‘Scotty’ from Star Trek Took Part in D-Day and was Shot 6 Times

In his lifetime, James Doohan fought with Klingons, Romulans, Greek gods, and a deep space probe named Nomad.

He struggled with interstellar engines, transporters, tribbles and William Shatner, but all of these fights paled in comparison to what he endured during WWII.

James “Jimmy” Doohan played the resourceful, hard-drinking and loyal “Scotty” on the original Star Trek series, a number of movies and reprised his role on Star Trek: The Next Generation. What many people outside the world of Star Trek fandom don’t know is that Doohan landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 — “D-Day”.

Doohan was Canadian, not Scottish, and his family came from Ireland. He was born in Vancouver in 1920 to Irish immigrants.

Doohan’s father was a sort of medical jack of all trades – a dentist, veterinarian, and a pharmacist. He was also an alcoholic who made life very difficult for his family. When Jimmy was 19, he enlisted in the Canadian Army – just before the outbreak of WWII.

Doohan (left) visiting NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center with pilot Bruce Peterson April 13, 1967 in front of the Northrop M2-F2.

In 1940, Doohan had worked his way up to the rank of lieutenant and was in England with the 14th Field Artillery of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division.

Initially tasked with helping in the defense of England should the Germans invade, his first taste of combat came some four years later when they 3rd Canadian landed at Juno Beach – the beach designated for the mass of Canadian troops.

Juno Beach was the Canadians’ “Omaha.” Though less bloody than the American landing beach, Juno was no cakewalk, and Doohan’s unit faced the strength of two German battalions in their landing area.

Making life more difficult was the mass of equipment that accompanied them, making movement in the water and sand exceedingly difficult going.

During the monumental day, James Doohan single-handedly took out two German snipers who were holding up the men of his company.

Doohan’s unit, along with the majority of the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach that day, pushed inland and secured their first day’s objective.

It seemed like D-Day had gone as well as could be expected for the future Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, but at around 11pm, as Doohan was making the rounds of his men, a nervous sentry opened fire, mistaking the lieutenant for a German.

Jimmy was hit six times: once in his right hand (which took off his middle finger – look hard and you can spot the wound, but Doohan tried hard to hide it during his acting career), four times in the left knee and once in the chest.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise rolls out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities with Star Trek television cast and crew members. From left to right, the following are pictured: DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. “Bones” McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Roddenberry; NASA Deputy Administrator George Low; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).

Luckily, Doohan was a smoker – the metal cigarette case he kept in his breast pocket deflected the bullet, avoiding his heart. Later in life, Jimmy would joke that “Smoking had saved his life.”

When he recovered from his wounds, he returned to the artillery, but this time he trained as an observation pilot, spotting German positions and directing/correcting Canadian artillery fire.

The plane he flew was a Taylorcraft Auster – a slow moving, wooden and canvas plane that afforded its pilots little protection.

Taylorcraft C/2, impressed by the RAF in September 1941. Photo by RuthAS CC BY 3.0

Though Doohan was not in the Canadian Air Force, some dubbed him the “Craziest Pilot in the Canadian Air Force” because he often flew in a daredevil, haphazard way – most notably when he flew between two closely placed telephone poles, “just to prove that he could.”

When WWII ended, Doohan returned to Canada and was listening to the radio during the holiday season of 1945-46 when he listened to “the worst drama he ever heard” on the local radio station. On a whim, he went down to the station and did a recording of his own.

Los Angeles, USA – January 17, 2014: The handprints of the cast of the original Star Trek series in front of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

Doohan had a knack for voices and accents. The station manager recommended that he enroll at a drama school in Toronto, and eventually he won a scholarship to attend the well-known Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

From there, it was “onward and upward”…he got roles on Bonanza, Bewitched, and a number of roles for the stage and radio. In 1966, he auditioned for the role of the ship’s engineer.

There is a long history of Scotsmen being engineers in the Royal Navy and in the cruise lines of the early 20th century, and Doohan told Gene Roddenberry (the series’ originator) that if his character was going to be an engineer, he should be Scottish. The rest is television history.

Read another story from us: Golden Girl Bea Arthur was one of the First Female Marines to Serve in WWII

James Doohan passed away in 2005. Fittingly, his ashes were taken into orbit and scattered in space.

Not me neither. Not a high velocity round, but it follows the old British dictum of "heavy and slow" and will put the hurt on anything . . . just like the .455 Webley. You get funny looks at the range . . .

I just can't imagine anybody hitting even a stationary target five times with a "Stench Gun". Stamped out of sheet metal, fires from an open bolt . .. there's a reason they called it the Woolworth Gun. Maybe five grazing shots, nothing center of mass . .. ?

The No. 5 had the shortest in-service time of any British rifle. There was a reason for that.

They cut down the weight of the rifle significantly by reducing the stock, eliminating most of the fore-end, and shortening the barrel, without reducing the muzzle energy of the round. Bad idea!

I loaded lighter bullets (150s i.o. 180s or 174s) with a reduced powder charge, and that helped some. But not much. An unpleasant rifle to shoot.

Same thing happened with the Walther PPK - which is a nice shooting gun in .32 auto, but .380 kicks like a doggone mule. I had a nice pre-68 one, but I sold it because I didn't like spraining my wrist. The modern compact .380s are designed for the round and are a pleasure to shoot.

"I just can't imagine anybody hitting even a stationary target five times with a "Stench Gun". Stamped out of sheet metal, fires from an open bolt . .. there's a reason they called it the Woolworth Gun. Maybe five grazing shots, nothing center of mass . .. ?"

I know what you mean - I haven't ever fired a Sten but I did carry an M3A1 Greasegun for a short while because, well, it looked cool when Steve McQueen carried one. I found out that:

1. It's heavy: fully loaded with 30 rounds, it weighs the same as the M14 that I should have been carrying.

2. The heavy bolt slammed the thing back and forth and hitting anything on purpose was unlikely.

3.It's a pistol caliber, so hitting anything at all past 50 meters (or really 25 meters) would be like getting the enemy to be struck by lightning.

4.The enemy always either showed up and 10 meters or 200m - the 10 meters required the lucky happenstance of being pointed in the right direction when we spotted each other and there was enough time for that slow bolt hit the cartridge before he hit you.

5. Lastly, loading the dang magazines took a thumb of steel - or having a rare loading tool - and reloading a magazine in the middle of a firefight was impossible. However many magazines you had loaded on you was all that you had for a fight.

Needless to say, I ditched the Greasegun for my M14 toute suite!

If it wasn't a Sten, what got Scotty? I can't imagine any weapon that would hit someone six times without the victim dropping immediately after the first round hit.

I'm with you on the PPK: I had several of the .380s and they were all miserable to shoot (but very accurate). Pulling the slide took a lot of effort against that recoil spring and the recoil caused my hand to roll up and to the right, making the follow-up shot take a while. Worse, the edge of the rear of the slide would cut the top of my hand, spraying blood all over my glasses (which also makes that follow-up shot harder).

Funny story about my (also) pre-68 PPK while I had it. For a short while I was on a Marine Corps shooting team and while I was at Camp Lejeune to compete in the Marine Corps Matches, I was assigned a Master Gunnery Sergeant to be a member of my team.

The Master Gunnery Sergeant was one of the top shooters in the Corps, which was great, but he was disdainful of officers (I was a captain back then) and he delighted in trying to embarrass me at every chance he had. For instance, one morning while I was taking my junior team members for a run - to build up their blood flow/oxygenation for the long matches - I called out to the Master Gunnery Sergeant to come run with us. He answered, nice and loud for everyone to hear him "Oh, no Sir - you go ahead and run. I learned to shoot well so I'd never have to run, but you go ahead". Of course, the troops laughed.

I couldn't stand the guy.

One afternoon during pistol practice (one hand, .45, 25 and 50 meters) he spotted my PPK and my shooting bench and said (loudly) "Of look, the Captain has a Saturday Night Special". I said, "OK, Master Guns, 25 meters, best of five round, loser buys beer"

He said "Oh Captain, I hate to take your beer but OK".

I shot the hardest I ever have and beat him with the PPK. He never bought any beer but it shut him up.

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