Flight to Arras

Book excerpt: The World War II aviator and author of The Little Prince tells his true story of flying a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. When the Germans first invaded France in May of 1940, the French Air Force had a mere fifty reconnaissance crews, twenty-three of which served in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Group II/33. After only a few days, seventeen of the crews in Saint-Exupéry’s unit had already perished. Flight to Arras is the harrowing story of a single mission over the French town of Arras, an endeavor Saint-Exupéry realized the futility of even as he witnessed it unfolding. Filled with tension, emotion, philosophy, and historical detail, and penned by a master storyteller, this extraordinary memoir serves as a record of a little-known chapter of the Second World War, and an unforgettable portrait of the brave souls who fought despite desperate odds.