Pilote de Guerre.

Pilote de Guerre; Lengthily Inscribed by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Pilote de Guerre.

SAINT-EXUPERY, Antoine de.

Item Number: 81458

New York:, 1942.

early printing of this Saint-Exupery’s memoir of his role in the French Air Force as pilot during the Battle of Paris in 1940. Octavo, bound in contemporary cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by Antoine de Saint-Exupery on the half-title page. “Pour Madame Stokes, ces souvenirs d’une pilot de ligne change en Pilote de Guerre et en hommage respectueux, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.”

Written in 1942, it recounts his role in the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. The book condenses months of flights into a single terrifying mission over the town of Arras. Saint-Exupéry was assigned to Reconnaissance Group II/33 flying the twin-engine Bloch MB.170. At the start of the war there were only fifty reconnaissance crews, of which twenty-three were in his unit. Within the first few days of the German invasion of France in May 1940, seventeen of the II/33 crews were sacrificed recklessly, he writes "like glasses of water thrown onto a forest fire". Saint-Exupéry survived the French defeat but refused to join the Royal Air Force over political differences with de Gaulle and in late 1940 went to New York where he accepted the National Book Award for Wind, Sand and Stars. He remained in North America for two years, and then in the spring of 1943 rejoined his old unit in North Africa. In July 1944, "risking flesh to prove good faith", he failed to return from a reconnaissance mission over France. It was adapted as a radio drama for American audiences by the NBC Red Network and broadcast on 7 October 1942 at the Author's Playhouse.

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