"July 31, 1944" - P38 Antoine de Saint-Exupery - oil on canvas

July 31, 1944. Antoine de Saint-Exupery takes off for his last mission. He Flies toward the French coast in his P38 F5 recon aircraft and disapear some hours later without leaving a trace... till 1998 when a fishermen finds a jewel in a Limestone concretion : a curb with the aviator's name. After a lot of efforts, some parts of Saint-Exupery's supposed aircraft are discovered not far from Marseille. But no evidences that could explain the cause of the crash. Two years after the discovery of the crashed P38, a German pilot, Horst Rippert, confessed that he was probably the one who shot down Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Despite the lack of evidences I've decided to illustrate this story with a typical landscape in background : "The Calanques" of Marseille and the little Messerschmitt 109 getting out of the clouds....