This week in the War, 31 July–6 August 1944: Author-Aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery dies on reconnaissance mission

This week in the war, on 31 July 1944, French author and pilot Antoine Saint-Exupéry was flying his plane on a reconnaissance mission for the Free French. He flew from an airbase in Corsica to gather information on German troop movements for the upcoming Allied invasion of southern France, Operation Dragoon. His aircraft never returned.

It has long been a theory, never substantiated, that his plane was shot down by a Luftwaffe fighter.

Saint-Exupéry became a commercial pilot and a pioneer of airmail services in the 1920s and joined the French air force at the outbreak of war.

After the fall of France, he spent some time in the United States, where he published the now world-famous children’s novel The Little Prince (Le petit prince).

Later, after the Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, he rejoined his former unit (which by then was under US command) and flew for the Free French.