RIP

Beam me up, Scotty.

The Canadian-born Doohan fought in World War II and was wounded during the D-Day invasion, according to the StarTrek.com Web site.

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You may have never noticed, watching the Original Series and the movies, that Mr. Scott has a physical handicap ? he's missing the middle finger of his right hand. That's because the actor kept it very well hidden. (Watch the shows again carefully ? Scotty is almost always clenching his right hand, or hiding it behind a console ? but if you know to look, the missing digit is occasionally apparent.) That injury occurred on D-Day. Lt. Doohan successfully led his Canadian troop onto the beach and pushed inland to establish the best possible gun position (along the way Doohan shot two German snipers, never knowing whether he killed them). A field was secured and command posts were established, but not all Germans between the beach and their position had been captured. That night about 11:30, Doohan and another officer were walking between command posts when machine gun fire broke out. Doohan was hit; he fell into a shell hole, looked at his hand and saw blood. Three bullets struck the one finger. Never losing consciousness, he actually walked to the regimental aid post, unaware he also took four bullets in the leg.

There was an eighth bullet, and it was nothing less than a miracle that he's still with us today. It hit his chest, four inches from his heart. But it ricocheted off the sterling silver cigarette case in his pocket, the one his brother had given him for being best man at his wedding. It's like a trite plot twist, he acknowledges ? his brother saved his life from thousands of miles away. Jimmy pushed the dent out of the cigarette case and continued using it until he quit smoking years later. He stayed in the military, learned to fly and came to be known as the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces."