Aviation and the Banknote (Article 2) – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

My second article in this series features a banknote that not only has two different airplanes on it but also celebrates a famous aviator, his life and his contribution to aviation as well as to literature.

The man featured on this banknote is none other than the famous aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Saint-Exupéry hailed from the beautiful and historic city of Lyon. He started flying at an early age and had a short stint in the French Air Force in the 1920’s leaving at the age of 22. After doing some odd jobs for a few years, in 1926 he got a job as a mail pilot for the aviation company Aéropostale in Toulouse. Aéropostale founder, Pierre-Georges Latécoère, envisioned an air route connecting France to the French colonies in Africa and South America. In 1932 the company merged with a number of other aviation companies to create Air France.

While working at Aéropostale Saint-Exupéry pioneered air mail routes across Europe, North Africa and South America. One of the aircraft flown by him is featured on the front of the note and is a Latécoère 28.

This was a French aircraft used for long haul air mail flights in the 1930’s. With this plane it was possible to send a letter from Paris to Santiago in Chile in the 1930’s in a super-fast four days instead of weeks or months that a steamer would have taken. Can you imagine waiting that long for any news these days!

The company also operated the Breguet XIV aircraft that is featured on the back of the note seen flying across the North African desert. This was a World War I French biplane bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft used a large amount of metal rather than wood in its structure which made it lighter, stronger and able to sustain comparatively more damage. Proving to be a successful plane it was ordered and used by numerous other countries such as the US, Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Uruguay, Spain, Siam, Poland, Czechoslovakia and was even built under license in Japan by Nakajima.

It was a mass-produced aircraft and continued to be produced post war in many different versions. Around 106 of these airplanes were used by Aeropostalé for flights over the Sahara Desert and when production finally ceased in 1928, the total of all versions built had reached around 8000!

The banknote features 2 of the many routes flown by Saint-Exupéry.

One of these is the route he flew while working at Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar. In 1926 Saint-Exupéry became the airline stopover manager for the Cape Juby airfield in South Morocco. Amongst other duties he also had to negotiate the safe release of downed airmen taken hostage, a dangerous task which earned him a Légion d'honneur from the French Government - the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits. He was later awarded the Chevalier (Knight) and Officier (Officer) distinctions for this award. In Tarfaya, Morocco, next to the Cape Juby airfield a Antoine de Saint-Exupery Museum was created honouring both him and the company and a small monument at the airfield is also dedicated to them.

In 1929, Saint-Exupéry was transferred to Argentina, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline surveying and setting up new airmail routes across South America. Aeroposta Argentina eventually went on to become the county’s national airline, Aerolineas Argentinas. Saint-Exupéry was also a keen writer and his flying experiences were the basis of most of his writings. During the 1920s, every flight was a dangerous adventure, and sometimes fatal. A lot of Saint-Exupéry's works explore the courage and bravery shown by airmen at those times. On his return from Argentina in 1931 his book Night Flight was published and became a success, receiving the Prix Femina literary prize. It was also adapted into film form in 1933.

The other route seen on the note is the Paris-Saigon route which in 1935 Saint-Exupéry and his mechanic were flying in an air race to try to break the speed record. The two of them crashed in the Libyan desert after almost 20 hours of flying.

Although both survived the crash, with no radio, poor maps, minimal sustenance and vast swathes of hostile desert they survived 3 days. Dehydrated in the desert heat, seeing mirages and vivid hallucinations they were fortunate to be discovered by a Bedouin who administered native rehydration and saved their lives. An account of these events is included in Saint-Exupéry’s memoir – the famous Wind, Sand and Stars published in 1939. This book gained even more accolades and went on to win the Grand Prize for Novel Writing from the Académie Française and the National Book Award in the United States.

Another of Saint-Exupéry's works, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) which begins with a pilot being stranded in the desert and his conversation with a young prince from an asteroid, is, in part, also reference to this experience. This is by far his most famous book, in fact it has gone on to become one of the most translated books in the world (excluding religious works), being translated into 300 languages & dialects (including braille). It is a children’s book, illustrated by Saint-Exupéry but is also a philosophical story observing the strangeness of the adult world. It is one of the bestselling books of all time, and has been adapted into many formats, including radio and stage plays, operas, ballets, video games, board games, and most recently into a 3D animated film.

The banknote of course features a few items from the book, 4 items in fact in diminishing degrees of visibility!

Firstly, the easily visible portrait on both sides of the banknote of the Little Prince standing atop his home – Asteroid B-612. There is an actual asteroid in the inner regions of the asteroid belt named after it - 46610 Bésixdouze. Bésixdouze is French for B-six-twelve and 46610 is B-612 written in hexadecimal notation.

Secondly, the easily visible but rather cryptic image of an elephant inside a boa constrictor - an aspect in the book that points to people who always need explanations as in the book adults initially mistake the image for a hat! This image is also printed using colour-shifting ink so when viewed in certain angles the image looks green while in other angles the image looks blue.

Thirdly, some micro printing that is not legible but visible as lines across the top left of the front of the banknote. Once the micro printing is zoomed into, one can decipher the French text.

In French it reads “Il y avait sur une étoile, une planète, la mienne, la Terre, un petit prince à consoler! Je le pris dans les bras”

This text repeats itself across the entire lines of micro printing. Translated into English it reads “There was a star, a planet, my planet, the Earth, a little prince to be comforted! I took him in my arms”, a quotation from the book.

Lastly, not visible to the naked eye, the picture of a ram as described in the story is printed in white ink. This image becomes visible when the note is held under ultra-violet light.

This alludes to one of the most quoted and philosophical lessons from the book “It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential remains invisible to the eye”

When World War II began Saint-Exupéry re-joined the French Air Force and flew reconnaissance missions. On July 31, 1944, he flew his final such mission departing from Corsica, never to return. He was considered killed in action. In 2000 a diver south of Marseille found remains of Saint-Exupéry’s Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Although his body was never identified, his name was added to the Panthéon in Paris – the building where the nation buries national heroes to acknowledge and honour them.

It reads “To the memory of Antoine de Saint Exupery, poet, novelist, aviator, missing during an aerial reconnaissance mission, 31 July 1944”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been honoured, awarded, commemorated, celebrated and his works exhibited in many countries around the world. His legacy as an aviator and author lives on and he is a true legend to feature on a banknote!

Mark Lazarus, a320busdriver@gmail.com
IBNS 11483