1900 - 1944
Pilot, Poet
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Antoine de Saint Exupery was born in Lyon, France on 29 June 1900.7
Exupery with his brother and sisters (4th from left)
After finishing schools at Sainte-Croix-du-Mans and Switzerland he tried to join the Navy, but he couldn't enter the Naval Academy. Exupery joined the french air force in Strasbourg in 1921 as mechanic.
Five years after in the age of twenty-six that he became pilot of mail service from Toulouse to Dakar, and he was named a chef of Port Juby office. Exupery flew to many South African cities, as well at during Spanish Civil war, for several years until 1938 when, after german troops occupied France, he moved to United States
His experiences during these flights and his numerous crashes in then still unstable planes are well described in Night Flight (Vol de Nuit, 1931), Southern Mail (Courrier Sud, 1929), Flight to Arras (Pilote de Guerre, 1942) Airman's Odyssey, Wisdoms of the Sands, Letter to a Hostage (Lettre à un Otage, 1943) and Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes, 1939).
During his life in USA, he wrote several novels among them one of his best knowing one, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). That book written in New York City (1940) is, according to some sources, third most readed book in the world in this century. Holy Bible and muslim Ku'ran are first two.
After beginning of World War II, Exupery moved back to France and joined army again. At 31 July 1944, during of one of his mission over Mediterranean Sea his plain was shot down.
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