War Pilot

The story of a senseless and nearly suicidal reconnaissance flight. A novel narrative interspersed with essayistic reflections describes the course of a dangerous reconnaissance flight in May 1940 over the burning northern French city of Arras, which is now being penetrated by Nazi Germany's tank units. French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29. 6. 1900 - 31. 7. 1944) was a quite extraordinary personality. Slovak literary historian and novelist Jozef Felix wrote about him: "Aviator - writer - hero." Saint-Exupéry drew the themes of his books from his own experiences as an aviator (South America, North Africa, Europe). For him, the goal of life is not adventure or action for action's sake, but action and sacrifice for the sake of others. For him, the airplane was a vehicle for a philosophical view of modern man's life. From the aviator's "cosmic solitude" he exposed the false realities of modern, purely mechanical and dehumanized civilization. He used a simplified language style and texts with a simple composition to express his resistance against the overtechnicalised civilisation based on demagogic ideologies. He considered literary activity a natural part of his busy and rich life. In The War Pilot (1942), Saint-Exupéry uses his personal experiences of a near-meaningless and near-suicidal reconnaissance flight over the burning northern French city of Arras to chronicle the desperate and futile defence against the advance of Nazi troops, but also to depict the transformation of the human psyche in the face of modern war. The book was written by Saint-Exupéry in 1941 in exile in the United States, to bear witness not only to the reconnaissance flight of 23 May 1940 to the north of France, but also to the heroic life of the members of 2/33 Squadron. Novel fiction has no place in the text, and the narrative, commented by reflections, sometimes turns into a completely independent commentary. Saint-Exupéry did not return from his fourth and final flying mission, which he had won from the French Air Force. On 31 July 1944 he took off from Corsica and disappeared during a reconnaissance flight. - Michal Plzák. From the book My Planet (publisher. Odeon, Prague 1976). Czech Radio recording from 2025.