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Saint-Exupery mystery solved: Little Prince author's plane found crashed off Marseille
Expatica.com ^ | April 7, 2004 | AFP

Posted on 04/06/2004 8:13:51 PM PDT by aculeus

MARSEILLE, France, April 7 (AFP) - A French underwater salvage team has discovered the remains of the plane piloted by the author of "The Little Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupery, six decades after his mysterious disappearance, state researchers said Wednesday.

The pieces of the famous writer and aviator's Lockheed Lightning P38 aircraft, which vanished July 31, 1944 during a wartime reconnaissance mission, were found off the coast of the Mediterranean city of Marseille, the Culture Ministry's Department of Sub-aquatic and Submarine Archeological Research said.

The discovery is a galvanising moment for France, which had long speculated as to the fate of Saint-Exupery, an aristocratic adventurer whose life and books turned him into one of the country's biggest heroes.

"The Little Prince", his edifying tale about an interstellar-travelling little boy who recounts his experiences to an aviator he meets in the Sahara Desert, brought him posthumous international fame.

The book, first published in New York in English in 1943 and since translated into more than 100 languages, is one of the best-selling titles on the planet, after the Bible and Das Kapital by Karl Marx.

Saint-Exupery, a veteran pilot who helped establish Latin America's Aeropostale air delivery service in the late 1920s, went missing shortly after flying out of his base on the French island of Corsica in good weather to photograph parts of southern France in preparation for the Allied landings there.

The pilot, then aged 44, never returned, and, until recently, it was not known whether his plane went down in the mountainous back country on the mainland, or somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea in between.

In May 2000, a professional French diver found the remains of a P38 plane in 70 metres (230 feet) of water off Marseille -- in the same area that a fisherman two years earlier had brought to the surface a bracelet inscribed "Saint-Ex".

"The zone containing the pieces was very large, one kilometre long and 400 metres wide," the diver, Luc Vanrell, said.

Another diver who is also an amateur aviation expert, Philippe Castellano, said the combination of the bracelet and his information on the 42 P38 planes that had gone down in southern France convinced him "it could only have been Saint-Ex's plane".

But a state ban on further dives in the area delayed further searches until October 2003, when a contracted salvage team recovered the pieces from the aircraft for the culture ministry's researchers.

One of them bore a manufacturer's number, 2734, that researchers finally confirmed corresponded to the military number given to Saint-Exupery's plane -- 42-68223.

"I had tears in my eyes when I saw the number," Pierre Becker, the head of Geocean, one of the engineering companies involved, said.

Castellano said the discovery was a dream for historians, even if it did not explain why the plane came down.

"There was no bent propellor, no bullet holes.... Looking at the pieces, we are thinking of a hypothesis of a near-vertical dive at high speed. But that's just a guess," he said.

The head of the culture ministry department that announced the news of the find, Patrick Granjean, said it was now formally established that the author's plane had gone down off Marseille.

But, he added: "We don't know why -- we probably never will."

© AFP


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: childrensliterature; found; france; literature; littleprince; planecrash; saintexupery
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1 posted on 04/06/2004 8:13:52 PM PDT by aculeus
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To: aculeus
"The book ... is one of the best-selling titles on the planet, after the Bible and Das Kapital by Karl Marx." Just me or is that funny?
2 posted on 04/06/2004 8:25:33 PM PDT by NotQuiteCricket (10 kinds of people in the world us and them.)
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To: All

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3 posted on 04/06/2004 8:25:50 PM PDT by Support Free Republic (Don't be a nuancy boy)
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To: NotQuiteCricket
Whats also funny, is that I never heard of the book :/
4 posted on 04/06/2004 8:34:03 PM PDT by L`enn
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To: Criminal Number 18F; JETDRVR; bootless; Aeronaut; Archangelsk
Aviation ping
5 posted on 04/06/2004 8:37:14 PM PDT by Squawk 8888 (Earth first! We can mine the other planets later.)
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To: NotQuiteCricket
One of my favorite books! I have given away dozens of this book. People think it for children, but it isn't. It is very profound.

"What is essential to the heart is invisible to the eye." My favorite quote from the Little Prince.

6 posted on 04/06/2004 8:41:04 PM PDT by TrueBeliever9 (aut viam inveniam aut faciam)
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To: aculeus
Hey thanks for posting this. I had seen mention a few years ago about the fisherman bringing the bracelet up in a net and had never been able to find anything else about it.

If anyone wants to read a decent pre-war flying book try Wind ,Sand and Stars instead of the above kid's book.

Now maybe someday Glenn Miller's plane will be located.

7 posted on 04/06/2004 8:44:18 PM PDT by Rockpile
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To: TrueBeliever9
One of my personal favorites:

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?" They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him.

He also wrote quite movingly of war, humanity, and responsibility. This quote, for me, has been particularly relevant in recent months:

To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
8 posted on 04/06/2004 9:05:57 PM PDT by Voss
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To: aculeus
It was not a Lockheed P-38.

He flew a special F-5 recon aircraft.

9 posted on 04/06/2004 9:18:48 PM PDT by First_Salute (May God save our democratic-republican government, from a government by judiciary.)
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To: Rockpile
The Little Prince is not a kid's book! It was not written for children, it was written to adults. Stupid bookstores place it in the children's section. Buy one - buy two because you will want to give one to someone very special.
10 posted on 04/06/2004 9:19:47 PM PDT by TrueBeliever9 (aut viam inveniam aut faciam)
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To: Voss
I must read that book again.
11 posted on 04/06/2004 9:20:50 PM PDT by dixie sass (Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, contentment - claws are sharp and ready for use!)
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To: L`enn
Are you kidding me? My Dad used to read me this book befoer I went to bed! Here. You don't even have to buy it:

THE LITTLE PRINCE

12 posted on 04/06/2004 9:20:52 PM PDT by Hildy (A kiss is the unborn child knocking at the door.)
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To: aculeus
Did he not also write the book NIGHT FLIGHT about mail carriers in the early days of flight?

I read it years ago.
13 posted on 04/06/2004 9:27:21 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (DEMS STILL LIE like yellow dogs.)
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To: SAMWolf
PING...
14 posted on 04/06/2004 9:28:03 PM PDT by tubebender (My wild oats have turned to shredded wheat...)
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To: L`enn
It's a wonderful book, for children of all ages. You will enjoy reading it.
15 posted on 04/06/2004 9:28:52 PM PDT by henderson field
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To: aculeus


16 posted on 04/06/2004 9:29:35 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Rockpile
"Wind, Sand and Stars," also by St. Exupery, is also a fine book, but don't overlook "The Little Prince" just because you are under the impression is it only for children.
17 posted on 04/06/2004 9:31:15 PM PDT by henderson field
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To: henderson field
Another of his great books is "Flight to Arras," his account of flying for the French Air Force during the disastrous battle in 1940. One of the few such books that gives the reader a very personal view of what it was like to be on the Allied side during that losing campaign.
18 posted on 04/06/2004 9:37:15 PM PDT by Poundstone
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To: Voss
To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.

Thank you for lifting my spirits! "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." I love the fox; I can relate to him. "The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

I feel that same way when I have read some of George MacDonald's words. What a gift to arrange words so beautifully.

19 posted on 04/06/2004 9:38:12 PM PDT by TrueBeliever9 (aut viam inveniam aut faciam)
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To: L`enn
You've never read The Little Prince? It's wonderful. The movie was my son's favorite and he used to watch it over and over.
20 posted on 04/06/2004 9:39:46 PM PDT by bonfire
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