This image is the cover for the book Flight to Arras

Flight to Arras

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.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aka “Winged Poet,” was born in Lyon, France, in 1900. A pilot at twenty-six, he was a pioneer of commercial aviation and flew in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Saint-Exupéry’s writings include The Little Prince; Wind,Sand and Stars; Night Flight; Southern Mail; and Airman’s Odyssey. In 1944, while flying a reconnaissance mission for his French air squadron, he disappeared over the Mediterranean.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)