Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator.

Born in Lyon to an aristocratic family, Saint-Exupéry trained as a commercial pilot in the early 1920s, working airmail routes across Europe, Africa, and South America. Between 1926 and 1939, four of his literary works were published: the short story '' The Aviator'', novels '' Southern Mail'' and '' Night Flight'', and the memoir '' Wind, Sand and Stars''. Saint-Exupéry joined the French Air Force for World War II and flew reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised by the Air Force, Saint-Exupéry lived in exile in the United States between 1941 and 1943 and helped persuade it to enter the war. During this time, his works '' Flight to Arras'' and '' The Little Prince'' were published.

Saint-Exupéry returned to combat by joining the Free French Air Force in 1943, despite being past the maximum age for a war pilot and in declining health. On 31 July 1944, during a reconnaissance mission over Corsica, Saint-Exupéry's plane disappeared: it is presumed to have crashed. Debris from the wreckage was discovered near Marseille in 2000, but the cause of the crash remains unknown.

Youth and aviation

Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon, into the French aristocratic Catholic family that traced its lineage back several centuries. Their surname references the 5th-century bishop Saint Exuperius. He was the third child of Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry (1863–1904) and his wife, Marie Boyer de Fonscolombe (1875–1972). His father, an executive of the ''Le Soleil'' (The Sun) insurance brokerage, died of a stroke in the train station of La Foux before Saint-Exupéry's 4th birthday. His father's death affected the entire family, transforming their status to that of "impoverished aristocrats".

Saint-Exupéry had three sisters and a younger brother, François, who died at age 15 of rheumatic fever contracted while both were attending the Marianist College Villa St. Jean in Fribourg, Switzerland, during World War I. Saint-Exupéry attended to his brother, who he claimed was his closest confidant, beside his death bed, and later wrote that François "remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a oungtree falls", imagery later recrafted into the climactic ending of '' The Little Prince''. At the age of 17, now the only male in the family following the death of his brother, Saint-Exupéry soon assumed the role of a protector and took to consoling his family, despite still being distraught over his father's death.

After twice failing his final exams at a preparatory Naval Academy, Saint-Exupéry entered the École des Beaux-Arts as an auditor to study architecture for 15 months, again without graduating, and then fell into the habit of accepting odd jobs. In 1921, Saint-Exupéry began his military service as a basic-rank soldier with the ''2e Régiment de chasseurs à cheval'' (2nd Mounted Hunters Regiment) and was sent to Neuhof, near Strasbourg. While there, he took private flying lessons and the following year was offered a transfer from the French Army to the French Air Force. He received his pilot's wings after being posted to the 37th Fighter Regiment in Casablanca, Morocco.

Later, Saint-Exupéry was reposted to the 34th Aviation Regiment at Le Bourget on the outskirts of Paris, and then experienced the first of his many aircraft crashes. Saint-Exupéry, influenced by the urgings of the family of his fiancée, future novelist Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin, subsequently left the air force to take an office job. The couple ultimately broke off their engagement and he worked at several more odd jobs over the next few years.

By 1926, Saint-Exupéry was flying again. He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight, in the days when aircraft had few instruments. Later, he complained that those who flew the more advanced aircraft had become more like accountants than pilots. He worked for Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar, and then also became the airline stopover manager for the Cape Juby airfield in the Spanish zone of South Morocco, in the Sahara. His duties included negotiating the safe release of downed fliers taken hostage by Saharan tribes, a perilous task that earned him his first Légion d'honneur from the French Government in 1930.

In 1929, Saint-Exupéry was transferred to Argentina, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline. He lived in Buenos Aires, in the Galería Güemes building. He surveyed new air routes across South America, negotiated agreements, and occasionally flew the airmail as well as search missions looking for downed fliers. This period of his life is briefly explored in '' Wings of Courage'', an IMAX film by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud.

Writing career

Saint-Exupéry's first novella, '' L'Aviateur'' (''The Aviator''), was published in 1926 in a short-lived literary magazine, '' Le Navire d'Argent'' (''The Silver Ship''). In 1929, his first book, '' Courrier Sud'' (''Southern Mail'') was published. It chronicled his time flying the Casablanca-Dakar mail route.

The 1931 publication of '' Night Flight'' established Saint-Exupéry as a rising star in the literary world. It was the first of his major works to gain widespread acclaim, and it won the prix Femina. The novel mirrored his experiences as a mail pilot and director of the Aeroposta Argentina.

That same year, at Grasse, Saint-Exupéry married Consuelo Suncin (née Suncín Sandoval), a once-divorced, once-widowed Salvadoran writer and artist, who Saint-Exupéry described as having possessed a bohemian spirit and a "viper's tongue".

Saint-Exupéry left and returned to his wife many times—he saw her as both his muse, but, over the long term, the source of much of his angst. The relationship has been described as 'rocky', with Saint-Exupéry travelling frequently and indulging in numerous affairs, most notably with the Frenchwoman Hélène de Vogüé (1908–2003), known as "Nelly" and referred to as "Madame de B." in Saint-Exupéry biographies. Vogüé became Saint-Exupéry's literary executrix after his death and also wrote her own Saint-Exupéry biography under a pseudonym, Pierre Chevrier.

Saint-Exupéry continued to write until the spring of 1943 when he left the United States with American troops bound for North Africa in the Second World War.

Canadian and American sojourn and ''The Little Prince''

Following the German invasion of France in 1940, Saint-Exupéry flew a Bloch MB.174 with the ''Groupe de reconnaissance II/33'' reconnaissance squadron of the Armée de l'Air.

After France's armistice with Germany, Saint-Exupéry went into exile in North America, escaping through Portugal. He stayed in Estoril, at the Hotel Palácio, between 28 November and 20 December 1940. He described his impressions of his stay in Lettre à un Otage. On the same day that he checked out, he boarded the S.S. ''Siboney'' and arrived in New York City on the last day of 1940, with the intention of convincing the US to enter the conflict against Nazi Germany quickly. On 14 January 1941, at a Hotel Astor author luncheon attended by approximately 1,500, he belatedly received his National Book Award for '' Wind, Sand and Stars'', won a year earlier while he was occupied witnessing the destruction of the French Army. Consuelo followed him to New York City several months later after a chaotic migration to the southern French town of Oppède, where she lived in an artist's commune, the basis of her autobiography, ''Kingdom of the Rocks: Memories of Oppède''.

Between January 1941 and April 1943, the Saint-Exupérys lived in New York City's Central Park South in twin penthouse apartments, as well as The Bevin House mansion in Asharoken on Long Island, New York and a townhouse on Beekman Place in Manhattan.

Saint-Exupéry and Charles Lindbergh both became P-38 pilots during World War II, with Lindbergh fighting in the Pacific War, and Saint-Exupéry fighting over the Mediterranean, where he later died.

Saint-Exupéry added the hyphen to his surname after his arrival in the United States, saying that he was annoyed with Americans addressing him as "Mr. Exupéry". During this period, he authored ''Pilote de guerre ( Flight to Arras)'', which earned widespread acclaim, and ''Lettre à un otage'' (), dedicated to the 40 million French living under Nazi oppression, in addition to numerous shorter pieces in support of France. The Saint-Exupérys also resided in Quebec City, Canada for several weeks during the late spring of 1942. During their time in Quebec City, the family lived with the philosopher Charles De Koninck and his family, including his "precocious" 8-year-old son, Thomas.

After he returned from his stay in Québec, which had been fraught with illness and stress, the wife of one of his publishers helped persuade Saint-Exupéry to produce a children's book, hoping to calm his nerves and also compete with the new series of ''Mary Poppins'' stories by P.L. Travers. Saint-Exupéry wrote and illustrated '' The Little Prince'' in New York City and the village of Asharoken in mid-to-late 1942, with the manuscript being completed in October. It was published in early 1943 in both English and French in the United States, and only later appeared in France, posthumously, after the liberation of France, as his works had been banned by the collaborationist Vichy Regime. ''The Little Prince'' is dedicated to Saint-Exupéry's close friend Léon Werth.

Return to war

In April 1943, following his 27 months in North America, Saint-Exupéry departed with an American military convoy for Algiers, to fly with the Free French Air Force and fight with the Allies in a Mediterranean-based squadron. Then 43, soon to be promoted to the rank of commandant (major), he was far older than most men in operational units. Although eight years over the age limit for such pilots, he had petitioned endlessly for an exemption which had finally been approved by General Dwight Eisenhower. However, Saint-Exupéry had been suffering pain and immobility due to his many previous crash injuries, to the extent that he could not dress himself in his own flight suit or even turn his head leftwards to check for enemy aircraft.

Saint-Exupéry was assigned with a number of other pilots to his former unit, renamed ''Groupe de reconnaissance 2/33 "Savoie"'', flying P-38 Lightnings, which an officer described as "war-weary, non-airworthy craft". The Lightnings were also more sophisticated than models he previously flew, requiring him to undertake seven weeks of stringent training before his first mission. After wrecking a P-38 through engine failure on his second mission, he was grounded for eight months, but was then later reinstated to flight duty on the personal intervention of General Ira Eaker, Deputy Commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces.

After Saint-Exupéry resumed flying, he also returned to his longtime habit of reading and writing while flying his single-seat Lockheed F-5B (a specially configured P-38 reconnaissance variant). His prodigious studies of literature gripped him and on occasion, he continued his readings of literary works until moments before takeoff, with mechanics having warmed up and tested his aircraft for him in preparation for his flight. On one flight, to the chagrin of his colleagues awaiting his arrival, he circled the airport for an hour after returning, so that he could finish reading a novel. Saint-Exupéry frequently flew with a lined notebook (''carnet'') during his long solitary flights and some of his philosophical writings were created during such periods when he could reflect on the world below him.

Disappearance

Before his return to flight duty with his squadron in North Africa, the collaborationist Vichy Regime unilaterally promoted Saint-Exupéry as one of its members. Saint-Exupéry was shocked and dismayed by this, in keeping with his historical harsh criticism of the Vichy Regime. Subsequently, French General (later French President) Charles de Gaulle, whom Saint-Exupéry held in low regard, made a public statement that implied that Saint-Exupéry was supporting Germany. Saint-Exupéry became depressed by these events and began to consume alcohol heavily. His physical and mental health began deteriorating. Saint-Exupéry was said, by his peers in the air force, to be intermittently subject to depression, and there was discussion about grounding him.

Saint-Exupéry's last reconnaissance mission was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France. Although he had been reinstated to his old squadron with the provision that he was to fly only five missions, on 31 July 1944, he took off in an unarmed P-38 on his ninth reconnaissance mission from an airbase on Corsica. To the great alarm of his squadron compatriots, he did not return, vanishing without a trace. Word of his disappearance soon spread across the literary world and then it spread into international headlines.

Discovery at sea

In September 1998, to the east of Riou Island (south of Marseille), a fisherman found a silver identity bracelet bearing the names of Saint-Exupéry, his wife Consuelo, and his American publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock. The bracelet was hooked to a piece of fabric, presumably from his flight suit. Announcement of the discovery was an emotional event in France, where Saint-Exupéry was a national icon, and some disputed its authenticity because it was found far from his intended flight path, implying that the aircraft might not have been shot down.

In May 2000, a diver found debris from a Lockheed P-38 Lightning submerged off the coast of Marseille, near where the bracelet was found. The discovery galvanized the country, which had conducted searches for his aircraft and speculated on Saint-Exupéry's fate for decades. After a two-year delay imposed by the French government, the remnants of the aircraft were recovered in October 2003. In 2004, French officials and investigators from the French Underwater Archaeological Department officially confirmed that the wreckage was from Saint-Exupéry's aircraft.

No marks or holes attributable to gunfire were found, but that was not considered significant as only a small portion of the aircraft was recovered. In June 2004, the fragments were given to the '' Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace'' (Air and Space Museum) in Le Bourget, Paris, where Saint-Exupéry's life is commemorated in a special exhibit.

Speculations in 1948, 1972 and 2008

In 1948, former Luftwaffe telegrapher Rev. Hermann Korth published his war logs, noting an incident that occurred at around noon on 31 July 1944 in which a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 shot down a P-38 Lightning. Korth's account ostensibly supported a shoot-down hypothesis for Saint-Exupéry. The veracity of his log was met with skepticism, because it could have described a P-38 which was flown by Second Lieutenant Gene Meredith on 30 July, shot down south of Nice

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