Any admirers of Le Petit Prince here? Its author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, disappeared in 1944 while on a reconnaisance mission for the Allies. He flew a P-38 from Corsica and never returned.
The circumstances of his death have never been explained.
A former Luftwaffe pilot has just revealed that he shot down a P-38 in the area where Saint-Exupéry disappeared, and his story seems to be accepted by many, though not all.
I was first introduced to the wonderful story of the interstellar traveller in my sophomore year of high school when studying French; it was one of the outside texts Mr. McConnell assigned. If you'd like to read it, it's online here with Saint-Exupéry's original drawings.
Posted by Linkmeister at April 14, 2008 08:30 AM | TrackBackInteresting. I've never read The Little Prince (maybe I will now), but as an aviation geek I knew of the mystery.
Posted by: DXMachina at April 14, 2008 11:08 AMI found the story, and Herr Rippert's regret, sad and charming. And I have read the Little Prince - actually, I've read Le Petit Prince, since I spent something like 5 years in high school and college studying French and at one time was able to read well enough to understand St. Exupery's fable in the original. It's even more charming.
Posted by: hedera at April 16, 2008 05:11 PM