James Doohan, Star Trek’s loveable engineer ‘Scotty’, first gained military experience in the Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps, then was commissioned as an artillery officer in the Royal Canadian Army at the outbreak of the war in September 1939.
He trained in England from 1940, but his first combat mission did not come until 1944 – the historic invasion of Normandy at Juno Beach on D-Day.
After the landing, Doohan shot two German snipers, then led his men to higher ground through a field of anti-tank mines, where they took defensive positions for the night.
In the darkness Doohan was hit by 6 rounds of friendly fire courtesy of a twitchy Canadian Bren gunner, taking 4 shots in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. His right middle finger had to be amputated, something he kept hidden during his acting career. Luckily, the bullet to his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case which he kept in his breast pocket.
After recovering from his injuries Doohan trained as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force, in support of the Artillery. Although never actually a member of the RCAF, Doohan was once labelled the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force” for daring to slalom a plane between telegraph poles on Salisbury Plain, which earned him a serious reprimand in the spring of 1945.
