The Lockheed P-38 Lightning last flown by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, positively identified, and will be placed on display at Marseille, in southern France.
Saint-Ex, as I first heard of him, was a French military pilot and writer active during World War II. He vanished on 31 July 1944, flying "one last mission", nighttime reconnaisance of German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley.
Why do I cover this? First, I'm a sucker for aviation history. Secondly, I try to be a literate man, and I generally focus my efforts in literature on things that I already like. Saint-Exupéry is an aviation author of note; therefore I ought to be reading his stuff. Besides, you can't like World War II aviation and not have heard of this guy.
Three little anecdotes or vignettes about Saint-Ex and me:
1. When I was a wee little nipper, I watched a lot of Nickelodeon. (Marc Summers' Double Dare was years in the future.) Included in this programming was something called The Little Prince, where a kid caught passing comets with a butterfly net and went to other worlds. I remember nothing else about it than that, but the source for this was none other than Saint-Exupéry.
2. I had been reading something on trial practice this past week, and a quote popped up: "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away." It is worth noting that the uncredited author was none other than Mr. Saint-Exupéry himself.
3. He's mentioned several times in one of my favorite books, Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Unfortunately, all I can find is the reference where Wolfe quotes him during the re-entry John Glenn's Friendship 7. I suppose it's just another one of those interesting coincidences that humans seem to have on a regular basis. Funny; I was reading The Right Stuff just this week.
I am glad that his aircraft was recovered, and I hope that the display in which it will be incorporated is a worthy one.
Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar.
Posted by Country Pundit at April 10, 2004 10:36 PMYou really were just reading The Right Stuff? One of my alltime favorites. Good movie, too.
You also might like Michael Collins' "Carrying the Fire."
Posted by: The Commissar at April 10, 2004 10:58 PMWell, I was re-reading portions of it; got it sitting here at the computer as I was hunting the Saint-Ex mentions. Earlier tonight I was going back through the part about Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yeager when they set down on a lakebed and got a plane stuck, plus the "Do good work" bit by Little Gus at the Convair plant.
The movie's great; I shelled out early on for the initial DVD and then again for the 20th anniversary one. I'm no fan of John Glenn, but Ed Harris does a good job in that movie. I'm told that you can get Bill Dana's Jose Jimenez routines from time to time on CD, when nobody's looking. Thanks for the recommendation on the book from Collins.
Posted by: The Country Pundit at April 11, 2004 12:21 AM