View source for Flight to Arras

{{Short description|1942 book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery}}{{One source|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox novel
| image             = FlightToArras.jpg
| caption           = First US edition (publ. [[Reynal & Hitchcock]])
| author            = [[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]]
| translator        = [[Lewis Galantière]]
| title_orig        = Pilote de guerre
| language          = French
| pub_date          = 1942
}}

'''''Flight to Arras''''' ({{Langx|fr|'''Pilote de guerre'''}}) is a [[memoir]] by French author [[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]]. Written in 1942, it recounts his role in the [[French Air Force|Armée de l'Air]] (French Air Force) as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the [[Battle of France]] in 1940.

The book condenses months of flights into a single, terrifying mission over the town of [[Arras]]. Saint-Exupéry was assigned to Reconnaissance Group II/33 flying the twin-engine [[Bloch MB.170]]. At the start of the war there were only fifty reconnaissance crews, of which twenty-three were in his unit. Within the first few days of the German invasion of France in May 1940, seventeen of the II/33 crews were sacrificed recklessly, he writes, "like glasses of water thrown onto a forest fire".

Saint-Exupéry survived the French defeat but refused to join the [[Royal Air Force]] over political differences with [[Charles de Gaulle]], and in late 1940, went to New York where he accepted the [[National Book Award]] for ''[[Wind, Sand and Stars]]''. He remained in North America for two years, and then in the spring of 1943 rejoined his old unit in [[North Africa]]. In July 1944, "risking flesh to prove good faith", he failed to return from a reconnaissance mission over France.

This work was adapted as a radio drama for American audiences by the [[NBC]] Red Network and broadcast on 7 October 1942 at the [[Author's Playhouse]]. <ref>[http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Authors-Playhouse.html "Definitive Author's Playhouse Radio Log"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120714051524/http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Authors-Playhouse.html |date=2012-07-14 }}, "The Digital Deli Too", 2009, retrieved July 19, 2012</ref>

The work was later adapted, by Rod Wooden, in 1998 as a radio drama by [[BBC Radio 4]], with David Threlfall playing the role of the pilot.

== References ==

{{reflist}}

{{Antoine de Saint-Exupéry}}

[[Category:1942 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]]
[[Category:French autobiographies]]
[[Category:World War II memoirs]]
[[Category:Literary memoirs]]
[[Category:Aviation books]]
[[Category:20th-century French literature]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1940]]


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