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Major A. L. Holt, MBE, MC (1896–1971) was a British military officer and explorer.

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 Harrat al-Sham in Jordan, which was to act as a guide track for the pilots of the Cairo – Baghdad air route. In 1923 Holt took Rose Wilder Lane, 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.

In 1923 he proposed a route for a trans-Arabian railway which he had personally surveyed in 1922 by automobile. He writes,

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.

The railway was never built.

References

1. Al-Yahya, Eid, ed. (2006). Travellers in Arabia: British Explorers in Saudi Arabia (1st ed.). London: Stacey International. ISBN 978-0-9552193-1-3.
2. Hill, Roderick (2005). The Baghdad Air Mail. Nonsuch Publishing. ISBN 978-1845880095. Reprint of original dated 1929
3. Holtz, William; MacDonald, Norman (illus). "The Little House on the – Desert". Saudi Aramco World. Houston: Aramco Services Company. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2020. Article appeared on pages 28–33 of the November/December 1984 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.
4. Holt, A. L. (1923). "The Future of the North Arabian Desert". The Geographical Journal. 62 (4): 259–268. Bibcode:1923GeogJ..62..259H. doi:10.2307/1781018. JSTOR 1781018. Retrieved 29 October 2020.

External links

• Photographs from Holt and St John Philby's 1922 expedition for the railway
• Holt and travel across the desert with Rose Wilder Lane

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• 1896 births
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• 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
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