Flight to Arras

On 23 May 1940, Captain Saint-Exupéry flew a reconnaissance mission over the town of Arras, piloting Bloch 174 No. 24. On board, Lieutenant Dutertre served as observer and Sergeant Mot as machine-gunner. Flying at low altitude, they came under German anti-aircraft fire; their aircraft was riddled with bullets and a shell burst an oil tank. Saint-Exupéry nevertheless managed to bring his crew safely back to the base of Group 2/33. For this feat he was awarded the Croix de guerre with palm and cited in the order of the Air Force on 2 June 1940.

This mission gave Saint-Exupéry the title of his book, Flight to Arras. Over the two years following the Arras mission, he worked on the account of it from exile in the United States, wishing to honor the courage of the young pilots involved — Gavoille, Sagon, Pénicot, Dutertre, Hochedé, Commandant Alias and Lieutenant Israël — while also explaining France’s capitulation and seeking to persuade the United States to enter the war. Settled in New York since December 1940, he had renewed contact there with Pierre Lazareff and Bernard Lamotte, a former fellow student at the Beaux-Arts. Once Pilote de guerre was finished, the text first appeared, in English, in the Atlantic Monthly in January 1942, illustrated by Lamotte. These illustrations were kept for the book edition, along with magnificent painted endpapers by Lamotte for the deluxe issue. At the same time, the French text was published, without illustrations, by Éditions de la Maison française.

“In truth, this book is a great and beautiful book, perhaps the true book of the war of 1939,” wrote Pierre Mac Orlan in Les Nouveaux Temps on 8 January 1943. From its publication, the book was a great success in the United States: “This account, together with Churchill’s speeches, constitutes the best answer the democracies have ever found to Mein Kampf” (Edward Weeks, in The Atlantic, quoted in Schiff, p. 363). American readers were deeply moved by the narrative, which topped the bestseller lists for six months, helping to correct the image of France in the eyes of public opinion and politicians.

Saint-Exupéry’s voice seemed to be heard. John Barbeen wrote in The Chicago Herald on 29 March 1942: “The critics do more than praise the writer’s talent. They bring into the press the idea of a deeper France, different from the high command in perpetual retreat […]. They convey the absurdity of flying, pursued by German fighters, when in nine months it had not been possible to obtain aircraft able to withstand the cold of the upper atmosphere.” In France, Éditions Gallimard submitted the book to the German propaganda service, which authorized its publication after removing a short four-word censored passage: “Hitler est un idiot.” The book was nonetheless quickly banned, so much noise did it make, and continued to circulate clandestinely in two editions (Lille, then Lyon).