Template:Infobox military person
Major A. L. Holt, MBE, MC (1896–1971) was a British military officer and explorer.[1]
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.[2] In 1923 Holt took Rose Wilder Lane, journalist B.D. MacDonald and Holt's wife by car across the same desert.[3]
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, Template:Blockquote
The railway was never built.
References
- ↑ Travellers in Arabia: British Explorers in Saudi Arabia{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Stacey International(2006). ISBN 978-0-9552193-1-3
- ↑ The Baghdad Air Mail{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Nonsuch Publishing(2005). ISBN 978-1845880095
- ↑ The Little House on the – Desert. Saudi Aramco World. Aramco Services Company.