James Doohan circa WW II. [Juno Beach Centre]
“Beam me up, Scotty.” Those famous words are associated with Star Trek actor James Doohan—words, it must be noted, never once uttered (or at least in that precise order) on the sci-fi television show that ran from 1966-1969.
There are several variations of the phrase, indeed a number of similar pleas from starship Captain Kirk—himself played by leading Canadian co-star William Shatner—to teleport out of trouble. Nevertheless, throughout Doohan’s tenure of portraying chief engineer Montgomery (Scotty) Scott aboard the space-travelling USS Enterprise, that exact request was never directed toward his long-beloved character.
Alberta-based historian—and Trekkie—Craig Baird knows this all too well. He also knows that before Doohan adorned the uniform of the fictitious Starfleet, he served in Canadian khaki during the Second World War, including storming Juno Beach on June 6, 1944.
Baird, who has hosted the “Canadian History Ehx” podcast since 2019, spoke to Legion Magazine about that service, from D-Day to the final frontier.
Craig Baird hosts the “Canadian History Ehx” podcast. [courtesy Craig Baird]
On Doohan’s pre-military life
Doohan’s parents arrived in Halifax from Northern Ireland just a few months before his birth. They took the train to Vancouver, and that’s where James Doohan was born on March 3, 1920. He lived the early part of his life there, but then the family moved to Sarnia, Ont., where he mostly grew up.
His early life wasn’t necessarily terrible. He had three siblings, but they were quite a bit older than him and were often not present. His father, meanwhile, could be very caring at times—especially if James was sick—but he was also a heavy drinker. Doohan remembered being horsewhipped by him for stealing money from the church, which he maintained he had never done.
Doohan would relate in his autobiography that he was often fascinated by mechanics and moving things. When you read these things, you can’t help but think about what he became famous for.
He was a relatively happy child. Ultimately, however, his home life became a problem. It’s one of the reasons why he later enlisted, to get away from that home life.
On Doohan’s early war years
Doohan served for the entire war, signing up in 1939. Originally, he was involved in communications, learning to use Morse code by relaying news articles. He could input something like 46 words per minute, which is surprisingly good.
Doohan obviously wanted to fight. He wanted to be in Europe. His brother Bill was serving and later gave him a silver cigarette case as a present. It was something that he always kept with him—and it was a good thing that he did.
He soon rose to the rank of lieutenant, but he found himself having trouble getting people to respect him as an officer because, in some cases, he was interacting with people he had known back home in Sarnia. In one instance, he actually went to his colonel about the issue. The colonel just transferred him to another area.
There, Doohan found that people were still not listening to him. In his book, he relates a really cool story where he finally got them to listen. He snuck out past the guards one night and into one of the tanks, where he put black tape over the periscope. The next day, he was supposed to have someone train with him in the vehicle. Inside, Doohan asked the trainee if he had checked everything, which he confirmed. There was a brief silence when the man finally realized that he couldn’t see out the periscope, which Doohan scolded him for before insisting that they continued through the town without it. Doohan ended up giving directions to ensure that they didn’t run over cars or lampposts or anything. They then switched roles, by which point the soldier was very sheepish.
Word spread to all the others, and from that point on, they listened to him. He had finally started to win their respect.
On storming Juno Beach
When D-Day happens, Doohan talks about how the Canadians lost several landing craft to mines. Doohan saw his first wounded man, whose entrails were hanging out and who was clearly hopped up on morphine. The man was just sitting there staring off into space, which was a very surreal thing for Doohan.
Bullets whizzed past him and there was chaos everywhere as he ran. They progressed, but he and another soldier got pinned down by two Germans up in a tower in one of the towns past the beach. Doohan ordered the guy to take out the two Germans. The guy fired, but Doohan wasn’t sure if the Germans had even known that somebody had shot at them—he was that off. So, Doohan took the shot himself, and when they didn’t get up, he realized they were dead. He deals with this a bit in his autobiography because he had never really hurt anybody in his life, and he had just killed two men. But he also said that was war—it’s what he had to do.
Doohan landed in support of The Royal Winnipeg Rifles (pictured) on D-Day. [Dennis Sullivan/DND/LAC/PA-132651]
On Doohan’s close shave
The night of June 6-7, 1944, James felt something suddenly hit him. He looked at his right hand and saw that his middle finger was still attached, but only just. It turned out that he had been wounded in a friendly fire incident.
Somehow, he got to a first aid station and realized that he had been shot in the leg as well. He then looked at his chest and saw one or two holes where a bullet had come in at an angle and had ricocheted off his silver cigarette case. He said that it was four inches from his heart.
Doohan notes that if somebody had written that for a Star Trek episode, where perhaps Scotty got shot by a phaser and it had bounced off a cigarette case, people would have called it absurd. But that’s how close we came to never knowing his name, or at least only seeing it on Sarnia’s war memorial.
On Doohan’s service after Operation Overlord
Doohan went back to England to recuperate, where he learned that doctors could save his finger, but it would always stick up, apparently even when he closed it into a fist. He was so worried about constantly flipping people off that he decided to have it amputated.
A lot of people never even noticed. He was so good at hiding it—even in Star Trek.
Doohan’s injuries weren’t severe enough to send him home. One day, he saw a plane and decided, “You know what? I’m going to try that.” As a child, he had always thought about leaving the confines of the ground to escape what was going on at home, and so, he trained to become an air observer. He eventually became a daring pilot, often just having fun, and by all accounts, never really getting hurt.
A still from Star Trek that clearly shows Doohan’s missing finger. [SciFi Stackexchange]
On Doohan’s journey to fame
Doohan was there for the whole six years of war but effectively had only one day of combat. It was arguably the most important day, of course, and he was shot six times in the process. After the war ended, he decided that he liked performing enough to take it up as a career. He was extremely good at accents, and especially liked Scottish accents, having perfectly imitated a Scottish military instructor. The reason that his Star Trek character Scotty is later Scottish is because he said that all the best engineers were Scottish.
Doohan eventually pursued a career in radio. He probably wanted something that had excitement to it, that was interesting. Something that gave him the same thrill as flying a plane low or D-Day or anything like that. And so, he transitioned into being a voice performer and, of course, in time, an on-screen actor.
Doohan never seemed to have an issue talking about his war service, even at sci-fi conventions, but he didn’t flaunt it. He was never really trying to grab the glory, which I think is a very Canadian thing in many ways.
When he was storming the beaches of Normandy, he probably never thought that one day he would become a famous actor and his ashes would go into space. Nor did he probably ever think he would inspire a generation of engineers across the world just from his portrayal of one, but that was Doohan.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Advertisement
