KIFIS
This was in our local rag (Arab News, from Agence France Presse) today:
MARSEILLE - The discovery of the wreck of a World War II US P38 Lightning aircraft 85 meters (280 feet) down in the Mediterranean off Marseille has rekindled speculation about the fate of novelist and air ace Antoine de Saint Exupery.
The author of "Le Petit Prince", translated into 110 languages, took off one day in 1944, headed out across the Mediterranean and was never seen again. The mystery of his disappearance has intrigued successive generations.
Speculation erupted more than 50 years on (1998) when a fisherman trawled up a silver identity bracelet off Marseille inscribed with Saint Exupery's name, that of his Argentinian wife and the name and address of his New York publishers.
Now local diver Luc Vanrell says he has found a Type J Lockheed Lightning in the same area - but cannot be certain whether it was of the reconnaissance type piloted by St Ex when he took off on that last flight 56 years ago.
His disappearance enhanced the cult of St Ex as a romantic man of action, an aura matching his continuing fame as author of "The Little Prince" {a series of parables about a boy prince recounting his adventures among the stars to a downed pilot on Earth and is one of the highest selling books in the world} and "Night Flight".
St Ex took off on 31 July 1944 in a Lightning P38J F-5B, a type modified asa special reconnaissance aircraft without armament, with cameras in the forward position where normally a cannon would be.
The discovery of the wreckage was announced last Thursday {25 May 2000} by France's Department of Subaquatic and Submarine Archaeological Research.
Director Luc Long said the diver had discovered the remains of a plane "probably a P38J, scattered over several hundred meters."
But the nose of the plane had not been found, which meant it was impossible to determine whether this was indeed St Ex's. A total of five P38J F-5B aircraft had been reported missing in the area.
Henri-Germain Delauze, head of the submersible robot engineering firm COMEX, has offered to deploy a remote-controlled device to seek out fragments such as the cockpit, engines or landing gear which could help identification.
Regards
CJ