The New York Times has the story: After the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the demise of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on a reconnaissance mission in World War II has long ranked as one of aviation’s great mysteries. Now, thanks to the tenacity and luck of a two amateur archaeologists, the final pieces of the puzzle seem to have been filled in.
... Without hesitating, Mr. Rippert replied, “You can stop searching. I shot down Saint-Exupéry.”
Mr. Rippert, who will be 86 in May, worked as a television sports reporter after the war. It was only days after he had shot down a P-38 with French colors near Marseille that he learned of Saint-Exupéry’s disappearance.
He was convinced he had shot him down, though he confided his conviction only to a diary. In 2003, when he learned that Saint-Exupéry’s plane had been located, his suspicion was confirmed. But still, he said nothing publicly.
Over the years, the thought that he might have killed Saint-Exupéry had troubled Mr. Rippert. As a youth in the 1930s, he had idolized the aviator-turned-author and had devoured his books, beginning with “Southern Mail,” in 1929, an adventure tale written while Saint-Exupéry was flying the Casablanca to Dakar route.
... In Paris, Saint-Exupéry’s grandnephew, Olivier d’Agay, who is a spokesman for the family, said that Mr. Rippert’s version of the events was credible. “All he said was that he hit and brought down a P-38 in that region on July 31 — he never said he shot down Saint-Exupéry,” Mr. d’Agay said. “Of course, he asked himself if it were true, though he kept it to himself.
“Rippert said he often felt desperate,” he said. “If he had known what he was doing, he never would have done it.”
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