Antoine Saint-Exupery was a French pilot during the early airmail days of aviation, and the author of The Little Prince. Saint-Exupery was famous for deeply contemplating “the why” of existence. In one anecdote, he woke up his fellow sleeping pilot friend in the barracks at 2AM to help him contemplate “But *why* do we deliver the mail?”

Saint-Exupery retained a beautiful child-like mind into his adulthood; an archetypal puer aeternus. T

Due to a lifetime of injuries and, at 43, being eight years older than the max, he became decertified as a pilot during WWII. Dwight D. Eisenhower personally granted Saint-Exupery an exception. However, he wrecked his P-38 during training and was grounded for eight months. He was granted another exemption to fly five final flights. On July 31, 1944, he took off in a Lockheed P-38 and plunged into the Mediterranean, never to be seen again.