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Mar 19 2008
The 64-year-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince and Flight to War, may have been resolved.
Saint-Exupery, who served with a Free French air force reconnaissance squadron based in Corsica, failed to return from a 1944 mission to prepare for the landing of the allies in southern France, leaving many to believe he had committed suicide.
However, in 1998, a fisherman found what was reported to be Saint Saint-Exupery's silver chain bracelet; and six years later, a diver found the wreckage of the plane. Debris from a German Messerschmitt was found in the same area, sparking a search for Luftwaffe pilots that ultimately led to 88-year-old Horst Rippert, a former German World War II fighter pilot who believes he shot down the French literary hero on July 31, 1944. Rippert says that, had he known who was in the plane, he would have held his fire: "He knew admirably how to describe the sky, the thoughts and feelings of pilots .... His work inspired many of us to take up our vocation."
Saint-Exupery's 1942 memoir Pilote de guerre (Flight to War) recounts a terrifying mission above the French town of Arras as the pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. Today he is widely considered to be the greatest author-pilot; The Little Prince, a children's fantasy in the form of a novella, is one of the top 50 best-selling books of all time, and has been translated into 100 languages.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
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