On July 31, 1944, he took off from an airstrip in Sardinia, Corsica, in an unarmed Lockheed P-38 (F- 5B) variant on a reconnaissance mission. The aim was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France. He never returned.

This is the story of a pioneering pilot who became a world famous author and “poet of flight,” then met an early aviator’s typically mysterious death, solitary, sudden and never fully solved. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into an aristocratic French family on June 29, 1900. In 1921, he joined the French Army and later took private flying lessons. After getting his pilot’s licence, he was transferred to the French Air Force. About this time, he was also involved in an air crash. The family of his fiancée persuaded him to leave the air force and take up a routine desk job. Sadly enough the engagement broke up not too long afterwards.

Another foray into flying in 1926 saw Saint-Exupéry become a successful commercial pilot. He delivered airmail in Europe, Africa and South America, pioneering new routes, despite the lack of suitable cockpit instruments. He flew for Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar, the westernmost city on the African mainland. He also had to mount rescue missions for downed aviators. He soon became famous as a pilot in his own country. In December 1935, Saint-Exupéry and his mechanic-navigator André Prévot were attempting to break the speed record in Paris to Saigon air race, competing for a prize of 1,50,000 francs. About 20 hours into the flight, they crashed in the Sahara. Both men miraculously survived, but found that they were in the desert with only a little food and drink, primitive maps, and absolutely no idea where they were. They stumbled around for a couple of days and soon experienced rapid dehydration in the intense heat. They began to see mirages and experience vivid hallucinations. After three days, a Bedouin on a camel discovered them and saved their lives. Saint-Exupéry later dwelt on this close encounter with death in his memoir Wind, Sand and Stars.

Then World War II began and Saint-Exupéry again joined the French Air Force, flying reconnaissance missions for some months. When France opted out of the War in 1940, he was demobilised. He spent two years in the United States trying to drum up support for a proposal to declare war on Nazi Germany. During this period, he also wrote three important works. But he yearned to return to combat, even though he was well past the permissible age for military pilots. He also suffered from pain and illhealth on account of injuries sustained during five serious air crashes. It is said that he could not even dress himself in his flying suit or turn his head to the left to scan for enemy aircraft. Also, he was sometimes subject to depression. After much determination and personal lobbying, his efforts to return to active flying bore fruit and he was permitted by General Dwight Eisenhower to join the Free French Air Force in North Africa. However, he was cleared to fly only five reconnaissance missions.

Truth to tell, Saint-Exupéry was not a stickler for rules and regulations, often extending poetic licence to the air. He had a habit of reading and writing while airborne. On one flight, he reportedly orbited for an hour so as to finish an engrossing novel. To his critics he had this to say: “I am very fortunate in my profession. I feel like a farmer, with the airstrips as my fields. Those that have once tasted this kind of fare will not forget it, ever. Not so, my friends? It is not a question of living dangerously. That formula is too arrogant, too presumptuous. I don’t care much for bullfighters. It’s not the danger I love. I know what I love. It is life itself.”

On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupéry took off from an airstrip in Sardinia, Corsica, in an unarmed Lockheed P-38 (F-5B) variant on a reconnaissance mission. The aim was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France. He never returned. News of his disappearance spread across the world, but the cause remained a mystery for decades. It was conjectured that he was either shot down over the Mediterranean or there had been an accident. He was also known to be somewhat careless about use of oxygen in flight and may have become hypoxic, passed out and crashed. The wreckage was located only in May 2000, when a diver found debris spread over thousands of square metres off the coast of Marseille. In April 2004, official investigators confirmed that the fragments of wreckage were, indeed, from Saint-Exupéry’s aircraft. However, his body was never found.

By his lyrical aviation writings, loosely based on his own experiences, Antoine Saint-Exupéry brought a rare freshness to the grim business of wartime flying. He was awarded France’s highest literary awards and the US National Book Award for his literary gems. His works include Night Flight (1931), based on his experiences as an airmail pilot and as a Director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline; and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), a memoir. He is best known for his novella The Little Prince (1943). Written for children and illustrated by the author himself, it tells the charming tale of a pilot stranded in the desert who meets a young prince fallen to earth from an asteroid. After Saint-Exupéry’s death, it was translated into about 250 languages and dialects, becoming a children’s classic and one of the best-selling books of all time.