Classic Thoughts / Survival under fire: William Rees salutes Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who died 50 years ago tomorrow

ON 31 July, 1944, 'Saint-Ex' was almost certainly shot down over the Mediterranean. In the absence of wreckage and body, mystery augmented the mythology already surrounding one of France's most colourful literary figures, a daredevil pioneering aviator and a national hero of the Thirties. Distilled first into fiction in Night Flight and then into the poetic first-person narrative of Wind, Sand and Stars, his experiences as a flier brought him popular fame and literary prizes.

Wind, Sand and Stars charts the inter-war years when, with famous comrades like Mermoz and Guillaumet, he created airmail routes across the Sahara and the Andes in planes barely adequate for a pleasure-flight. They survived crashes, hurricances, sandstorms and kidnappings by rebel tribesmen. Two episodes stand out above all: Guillaumet's unbelievable walk to safety after a crash in the Chilean snowfields, and Saint-Exupery's equally extraordinary survival after days without water in the Libyan desert.

He lived to tell these epic tales in an exquisitely crafted yet passionately rhythmical style, finding transcendent values at the boundaries of ordinary life. Yet on the ground he was awkward and insecure, brought down like Baudelaire's albatross from skies where he was expansive and fulfilled. A tormented lover and an unhappy husband, he never recovered from the loss of a childhood paradise to which he constantly returns in his writing. In these ambiguities lie the sources of his most famous work of all, The Little Prince.

In 1939, too old to fly a fighter, he volunteered for a reconnaissance squadron where he reached new extremes of human experience. The account in Flight to Arras of his survival under intense fire is one of the most absorbing pieces of World War Two writing in any language. Sent in May 1940 on a futile mission over advancing Nazi tanks and chaotic hordes of French refugees, Saint-Exupery reaches an understanding of himself, of his defeated nation, and of the seeds of its regeneration.

The first book to draw sense and new inspiration out of the shame of 1940, Flight to Arras had an immense impact. In America it headed the best-seller list for six months in 1942, and helped swing public opinion behind entry into the European war. The Vichy government banned it in 1943. So did the Free French, ironically, for Saint-Exupery loathed General de Gaulle's personal ambition and refused to support him in setting Frenchman against Frenchman.

His attempts to join the RAF showed where his heart truly lay, and he finally persuaded an American commander in the Mediterranean to let him fly, despite his age and old crash injuries. Almost certainly off course after an unauthorised detour over his childhood home, deeply troubled now in both his private and his public life, Saint-Exupery finally met the death he had long acknowledged as a travelling companion.