2005-03-05 Short but unforgettable

A short but searing personal account of a suicidal reconnaissance mission flown as France was collapsing before the Nazi surprise attack. From the vantage point of this short flight, Saint Exupery saw the whole tragedy: the population of the North taking to the roads south, unable to bear the repetition of the pain that they had suffered less than a quarter of a century earlier, and the utter impossibility of getting any help to the elderly reservists that faced the blitzkrieg.

To read this book is to understand two things: how the view of the pilot can increase his sympathy rather than his detachment, and what the collapse of France was like. How a country with rough parity of equipment and forces could be so quickly defeated by a neighbour is a matter for military historians, but as for what it was like to be on the losing side, I can not think of a better account.