'Little Prince' Mystery Solved

[Snellius]

(AP) It was one of French aviation's enduring mysteries: Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the flying ace and author of the beloved tale "The Little Prince," took off on a World War II spy mission for the Allies and was never seen again.

After 60 years, the twisted wreckage of the aviation pioneer's Lockheed Lightning P-38 has turned up on the Mediterranean seabed, not far from the rugged cliffs of Provence, Air Force Capt. Frederic Solano said Wednesday. Tests show it's a match.

It was a stunning revelation: Teams have been searching up and down the coast for decades, and many experts believed the plane was probably too far out to sea to be recovered.

In France, the discovery is akin to solving the mystery of where Amelia Earhart's plane went down in the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/07/world/main610771.shtml

[mike1963]

1. Fascinating. I never read The Little Prince but I have a copy of his

Wind, Sand and Stars. Need to read it again, been too long.

[jakpalmer]

2. I've read somewhere that some people believe "The Little Prince" is the

third most read book of all times, behind the Bible and Karl Marx's Das Kapital...

[newyawker99]

24. Hi jakpalmer!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[struggle4progress]

9. Both beautiful books ...

and there's a third he wrote about his war experience, in which he finally appeciates adult companionship.

[TahitiNut]

20. I have it in both French and English and read it periodically.

It's beautiful. I don't speak French, just what I've picked up from travelling there. Yet it's beautiful in both the sound and the simplicity. I'd put it on the list of "essential" books.

[Ediacara]

3. That's incredible

France had honored Saint-Expury (and the Little Prince) by placing him on the 50 franc note of the final series produced:

[m-jean03]

14. Those are so neat

I wish I'd kept some of mine from my time there.

One of the sad things about the demise of the franc!

[librechik]

4. aaahhhh...

how cool. a lost boy found at last. Au Revoire, Antoine!

[Merlin]

5. He learned one of life's great lessons from machines suspended on air.

"What is essential is invisible to the eye."
--The Little Prince

[DemoTex]

6. Antoine Saint-Exupery lived in NYC for a while.

Paul Auster (New York Trilogy, The Music of Chance, Book of Illusions, Timbuktu, Leviathan, and other great novels) wrote a short essay about Saint-Exupery's stay in NYC in Granta a few years back. Seems that the brownstone Saint-Exupery lived in was once in Auster's family or was rented from Auster's family. I forget the details.

I read Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince in high school. I have read and re-read his great Wind, Sand, and Stars over the years. What a loss.

[bobbieinok]

7. Wind, Sand and Stars - great book

[SharonAnn]

8. My favorite was "The Little Prince" and then "Night Flight"

What a poet.

[DemoTex]

11. I loved "Night Flight" too.

Also Southern Mail and Airman's Odyssey.

[mike1963]

16. Just popped over to ebay & bought a copy of TLP

:D

I've read a jillion books but never seemed to run across that one.

[DemoTex]

17. Remember the "turbulence" passage in "Wind, Sand, and Stars"?

Fantastic. Rinker Buck (who I think is a Delta pilot) wrote Flight of Passage, with a very poetic section on turbulence in a Texas mountain pass in a Piper J-3 Cub.

[mike1963]

21. I remember the turbulence in WS&S but not familiar with the other one.

One of my real favorites is of course "Fate is the Hunter", I went to high school & was friend with Doug Catchings whose dad was prominently mentioned in Gann's book. (they made a movie out of it back in the mid 60s and it SUCKED BAD.)

;-)

Schneider
:evilgrin:

[patricia92243]

10. Loved Little Prince and had never heard anything about the author. Thanks

[Lisa]

12. I showed my geography class a quote from "The Little Prince" last week

(the one where he's talking to the geographer on the 6th planet)

Nobody could guess where it was from, until I showed them the illustration!

I'm almost sorry the wreckage was found. I wanted to believe he hadn't really died in the crash after all, and was off exploring all those planets.

p.s. has anyone else read Roger Zelazny's "Roadmarks"? I'm pretty sure he makes a brief appearance, though the author never identifies him.

[Rowdyboy]

13. They only mentioned wreckage, not remains

In the words of Jesse Jackson "Keep hope alive!"

[DivinBreuvage]

15. A nice thought!

and it's true! You just "never know"!

[discordian]

18. Anyone remember the cartoon?

I used to watch The Little Prince on Nickelodeon with my little brother. I think I read some of the book too. Never knew anything about the author though.

[m-jean03]

23. Or the truly bizarre 70s film

w/Gene Wilder as "the fox"? :crazy:

[DivinBreuvage]

19. For what it's worth, another French aviator who mysteriously vanished:

Georges Guynemer, France's second-highest-scoring fighter ace of the First World War (53 kills) who flew out on a mission on September 11 1917 and never returned. The French adored him for his gallantry and "heart" (he drove himself relentessly despite suffering from tuberculosis, and was shot down numerous times but refused to quit flying).

He once fought Germany's second-highest-scoring ace, Ernst Udet, in single combat. Guynemer had a better plane and was a better pilot so Udet had his hands full simply trying to keep from getting shot down, and to make matters worse his gun jammed. He was pounding on it frantically trying to clear it when Guynemer flew back around and saw his plight. Udet thought he was done for but the chivalrous Guynemer simply gave him a wave and a smile and flew away.

(Udet survived the war, including one death-defying episode where he bailed out of his burning plane with one of the first parachutes, which then got snagged on the tail of the plane. Udet managed to work it loose and float to safety. He became quartermaster general of the Luftwaffe in World War II and on the night of November 17 1941 locked himself in his office, drank two bottles of cognac, and shot himself).

A lovely, poetic quote that applies to both Guynemer and Saint-Exupery:

"He was neither seen nor heard as he fell, his body and his machine were never found. Where has he gone? By what wings did he manage to glide into immortality? Nobody knows: nothing is known. He ascended and never came back, that is all. Perhaps our descendents will say: He flew so high that he could not come down again." L'Illustration, 6 October 1917

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/guynemer.html

[Gloria]

22. My copy of Le Petit Prince is in my bookcase behind me.....

It was given to me Noel 1965 around the time I started French in school by an old family friend who was a librarian.
Ms LeVow inscribed it as follows:


Chere Gloria,
Pour toi cette histoire
Pour toi mon espoir
Que ce livre de moi
T'apporte une grande joie

Les Meilluers sonhaits--Pour un joyeux Noel...

Makes me want to go back and review my French....RIP Antoine.

[Bushfire]

25. J'espere une bonne reve Antoine

n/t