For example, Doohan’s injury can be briefly glimpsed in the famous episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”: Doohan later joked it was the only time being a smoker saved his life.ĭoohan attempted to hide his missing finger in episodes of Star Trek (a hand double was even used in some close-up scenes), but he wasn’t always successful. Fortunately, the cigarette case stopped the bullet aimed at his chest. He had been shot by a nervous, trigger-happy Canadian sentry. The first four bullets slammed into his leg, the fourth whacked him in the chest, while the sixth took off his right middle finger. Some ten minutes later, he was walking back to his command post when he was shot. It had been given to him by his brother as a good luck charm… and a good thing, too. There was, however, a problem.Īlthough Doohan escaped the initial moments of the invasion relatively unscathed, his luck didn’t last:Īt about 11:20 that evening, Doohan finished a cigarette and patted the silver cigarette case he kept in his breast pocket.
They could rest, as well as deal with their dead and wounded. As they made their way to higher ground, Doohan managed to take out two German snipers – his first kills of the war.īy noon, they had secured their positions. Despite the anti-tank mines beneath their feet, none went off, as the men were not heavy enough to activate them. After two hours, they had swept aside most of the Germans on their stretch of the beach.ĭoohan led his men across the sands and got lucky. Fortunately for them, the HMS Ajax had bombed Juno earlier, doing more damage to the coastal defenses than the planes had. The first Canadians reached Juno Beach at 7:35 AM and were cut down. As the meme states, Doohan successfully led his men across the beach littered with anti-tank mines, and also managed to take out two German snipers: However, this meme doesn’t identify the likely source of these gunshots: A nervous Canadian sentry.ĭoohan was a commissioned lieutenant with the 14th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, and was tasked with invading an area of Normandy code-named Juno Beach. It’s also true that one of these bullets was stopped by a cigarette case in his pocket. He did suffer several gunshot wounds during the invasion, which ultimately resulted in the loss of his middle finger. The story presented in this meme is largely accurate. Doohan was one of some 14,000 Canadian soldiers who landed in Normandy, France, in June 1944 during World War II. A meme purportedly relaying the heroic exploits of James Doohan, who is best known as the actor who played Scotty in the original Star Trek series, was shared by the “Meanwhile in Canada” Facebook page in June 2018, in remembrance of D-Day:
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