Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

A. L. Holt, MBE, MC (1896–1971) was a British military officer and explorer. In the 1920s while a member of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

, Holt led a number of motorized expeditions through the deserts of

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, the first time such long journeys had been undertaken with such a large number of vehicles. In 1921 Holt was involved in creating a track across the

Syrian Desert The Syrian Desert ( ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert, and steppe, covering about of West Asia, including parts of northern Saudi Arabia, ea ...

from

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

to the eastern edge of the

Harrat al-Sham The ''Ḥarrat al-Shām'' (), also known as the ''Harrat al-Harra'' or ''Harrat al-Shaba'', and sometimes the Black Desert in English, is a region of rocky, basaltic desert straddling southern Syrian region and the northern Arabian Peninsula. ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, which was to act as a guide track for the pilots of the Cairo – Baghdad air route. In 1923 Holt took

Rose Wilder Lane Rose Wilder Lane (December 5, 1886 – October 30, 1968) was an American writer and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is one of the more influential advoca ...

, journalist B.D. MacDonald and Holt's wife by car across the same desert. Holt traveled on occasion with St. John Philby and

Gerard Leachman Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Evelyn Leachman, CIE, DSO (27 July 1880, Petersfield, Hampshire – 12 August 1920, Iraq) was an English soldier and intelligence officer who travelled extensively in Arabia. Career Leachman was commissioned a second ...

. In 1923 he proposed a route for a trans-Arabian railway which he had personally surveyed in 1922 by automobile. He writes, The railway was never built.

References

External links

Photographs from Holt and St John Philby's 1922 expedition for the railway
1896 births 1971 deaths 20th-century British explorers English explorers Explorers of Asia Explorers of Arabia Members of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Military Cross Recipients of the MacGregor Medal Royal Engineers officers {{UK-explorer-stub