OT: Antoine De Saint-Exupery's P-38 found.

On the level??? First they find Adrian Warburton in Bavaria after all these years and now Saint-Exupery! Sounds like the wreck is under water. How did they find him, accident or did they have some idea where he went down and were searching.

Bill Shuey

Bill asked:

I saw something yesterday on the internet. Some fisherman pulled something up in his nets a couple of years ago. Most people thought it was a fake. Apparently some scuba guys backtracked and searched for a couple of years until they found a debris field and a part with a serial number that checked out.

Rick MFE

in article snipped-for-privacy@mb-m07.aol.com, OXMORON1 at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote on 4/8/04 1:28 PM:

Copied from HyperScale forum;

MARSEILLE, France, April 7 (AFP) - A French underwater salvage team has discovered the remains of the plane piloted by the author of "The Little Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupery, six decades after his mysterious disappearance, state researchers said Wednesday.

Saint-Exupery, a heroic French aviator who became the world's third best selling author

The pieces of the famous writer and aviator's Lockheed Lightning P38 aircraft, which vanished July 31, 1944 during a wartime reconnaissance mission, were found off the coast of the Mediterranean city of Marseille, the Culture Ministry's Department of Sub-aquatic and Submarine Archeological Research said.

Yep, it's true. Too bad they didn't announce it on 04/01 though. The object mentioned by Rick that was pulled out of the fisherman's net in '98 was a bracelet with De Saint-Exupery's name on it.

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

At the moment I can't remember the source, but do recall it was a pair of FW-190s. PT

from the debris field and divers report, he must have been doing a hard dive to escape.

Bill, who was Adrian Warburton and how did he end up in Barvaria? Mike IPMS

I have an article from Le Figaro Magazine from November of 1998 that really goes into detail, yet I have not translated it yet. From the tone I could gather, they were very much certain that after the bracelet was found, the wreckage of the 38 was pretty much a confirmation of the fact, that we have had to wait for until now.

The magazine has photos of the wreckage that was recovered before the French government ordered a halt to the search - presumably as to not disturb a war grave. Contrary to the new reports, one photo does show an oxygen tank that the article supposes was pierced by a bullet from the top? To quote: 'On y distingue un impact de ball de mitrailleuse allemand entree par le haut'

They indicate the tank being in the right hand boom behind the intercoolers, is this correct?

I have read other reports that posited that StEx was attacked by FW190's. Seems as if an unlucky bullet took his oxygen tank out and he passed out due to lack of oxygen.

StEx was 44 when he flew his last mission, and he had received special permission for his last flights after several denials due to his age. He did not have to fly anymore, but I think he sensed the value of the publicity that his missions would generate as well as the value that the mission itself. A true hero.

Keith Walker

WOW! Of all the things for that fisherman's net to snag, that would have to be the most unlikely. No wonder some people thought it was a hoax.

Bill Shuey

Wing Commander Adrian Warburton, famous RAF reconnaissance pilot who was most noted for being the pilot who photographed the Italian Fleet at Taranto to get the pictures the Royal Navy needed to plan their attack. His awards included the Distinguished Service Order with Bar, the Distinguished Flying Cross with 2 Bars and the American Distinguished Flying Cross. He disappeared without a trace in April, 1944 flying a Lockheed F5 borrowed from the USAAF photo group at Mount Farm. 50 odd years later while clearing a patch of woods they found the wreckage. Good biography: "Warburton's War", by Tony Spooner, Crecy Books, Ltd., 1994 ISBN 0-947554-46-7

"The wreckage was tangled with that of a German Messerschmitt, making the vast puzzle facing researchers even more tantalisingly challenging"

That's what they say in the Scotsman :