Flight to Arras

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Flight to Arras (French: Pilote de guerre) is a book by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Written in 1942 it recounts his role in the French air force as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. Saint-Exupéry is widely considered to be the greatest author-pilot of all time.

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 Potez 637. 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 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 America for two years, 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 recon mission over France.