James Doohan (1920-2005) was an engineer, and later a captain of artillery in the Canadian Army and was wounded on D-Day. He "sat out" the rest of the war flying reconnaissance over enemy lines. After the war, he taught and practiced acting, appearing in over 4,000 radio and TV programs, as well as films and Shakespearean production. When his friend Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, he wrote the part of Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, to fit Doohan's real-life persona. Doohan stepped into the tailor-made role of "Scotty," and the rest is history. Later in life he wrote a fast-moving adventure series conceived as a science fiction expansion of his personal career as an engineer and pilot in World War II.