Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

French pilot and writer who influenced the world of aviation literature with his novels "Night Flight," 1931, "Wind, Sand and Stars," 1939 and "The Little Prince," in 1943. With his courage and sensitivity, Saint-Exupéry was at the dawn of aviation history, exploring the skies and opening up commercial air routes in Europe, North Africa and South America.

During WW II, he flew reconnaissance missions during the Nazi invasion of France. Antoine disappeared mysteriously on his seventh mission on 31 July 1944 over the Mediterranean Alps in his P-38 Lightning. He was presumed dead by authorities either by crashing, being shot down or committing suicide. No trace of his body or plane had been found.

Saint-Exupéry grew up in an impoverished noble family. His father, Jean de Saint-Exupéry, worked for an insurance company. His mother, Marie, indulged her son and her other four children. He was brought up in two chateaux owned by his great aunt and his maternal grandparents. His father died when he was four years old. He displayed unruly behavior and was extremely willful to the nannies who tried to raise the boy and his siblings.

At 12, Saint-Exupéry tried to build an airborne bike. He was an avid reader who read Jules Verne and Hans Christian Anderson. Failing as a naval candidate at the Ecole Bossuet in Paris, he borrowed money from his mother and enrolled at the Beaux-Arts school to try his hand at architecture. He used his noble background to be invited to the best houses and enjoyed the lavish dinners and milieu of fellow aristocrats.

In 1921, he went to the Strasbourg military base and was awarded his pilot's license the following year. He went to work for a commercial airline company as an international air mail pilot and by 1926 was flying mail from Casablanca to Dakar. He wrote in his personal journal in cafes in Paris and when he traveled.

In 1929, Saint-Exupéry wrote his first novel, "Southern Mail.