Bot at 18:01, 27 June 2022

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{{Short description|British explorer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|honorific_prefix =
|name = A. L. Holt
|honorific_suffix = MBE, MC
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|birth_date = {{birth year|1896}}
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|death_date = {{death year and age|1971|1896}}
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|rank = Major
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|unit = Royal Engineers
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[[Major]] '''A. L. Holt''', [[Member of the Order of the British Empire|MBE]], [[Military Cross|MC]] (1896–1971) was a British military officer and explorer.<ref name="REF1">{{cite book |editor1-last=Al-Yahya |editor1-first=Eid |title=Travellers in Arabia: British Explorers in Saudi Arabia |year=2006 |publisher=Stacey International |location=London |isbn=978-0-9552193-1-3 |edition=1st}}</ref>

In the 1920s while a member of the [[Royal Engineers]], Holt led a number of motorized expeditions through the deserts of [[Arabia]], 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]] from [[Baghdad]] to the eastern edge of the [[Basalt Desert]] in [[Jordan]], which was to act as a guide track for the pilots of the [[Cairo – Baghdad air route]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Roderick |title=The Baghdad Air Mail |year=2005 |publisher=Nonsuch Publishing |isbn=978-1845880095 |quote=Reprint of original dated 1929}}</ref> In 1923 Holt took [[Rose Wilder Lane]], journalist B.D. MacDonald and Holt's wife by car across the same desert.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Holtz |first1=William |last2=MacDonald |first2=Norman (illus) |title=The Little House on the – Desert |url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198406/the.little.house.on.the.desert.htm |website=Saudi Aramco World |publisher=Aramco Services Company |accessdate=29 October 2020 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303183419/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198406/the.little.house.on.the.desert.htm |archivedate=3 March 2012 |location=Houston |quote=Article appeared on pages 28–33 of the November/December 1984 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.}}</ref>

Holt traveled on occasion with [[St. John Philby]] and [[Gerard Leachman]].

In 1923 he proposed a route for a trans-Arabian railway which he had personally surveyed in 1922 by automobile. He writes,
{{blockquote|I have taken a convoy of Fords 350 miles in the desert without touching water. The extraordinary advantage of this in reconnaissance needs no emphasis.<ref name="REF2">{{cite journal |last1=Holt |first1=A. L. |title=The Future of the North Arabian Desert |journal=The Geographical Journal |year=1923 |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=259–268 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1781018 |accessdate=29 October 2022}}</ref>}}

The railway was never built.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2008/natural-history-travel-atlases-maps-l08407#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L08407.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L08407.html/102/+r.o=/en/ecat.notes.L08407.html/102/ Photographs from Holt and St John Philby's 1922 expedition for the railway]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120303183419/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198406/the.little.house.on.the.desert.htm Holt and travel across the desert with Rose Wilder Lane]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holt, A L}}
[[Category:1896 births]]
[[Category:1971 deaths]]
[[Category:British explorers]]
[[Category:English explorers]]
[[Category:Explorers of Asia]]
[[Category:Explorers of Arabia]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]]
[[Category:Recipients of the MacGregor Medal]]
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]

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A. L. Holt - Revision history

Bot at 18:01, 27 June 2022