The man who shot down Saint-Exupéry's plane found - By Nurhan Kocaoglu

On July 31, 1944, the Lightening P-38, which took off from Corsica, disappeared soon after off the radar along with its pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. For decades, it remained unclear if the 44-year-old writer was shot down, committed suicide or simply disappeared. But 10 years ago, the mystery slowly began to unravel when a fisherman found a bracelet with the French writer's name in his net. Soon after, divers recovered pieces of the aircraft from the Mediterranean. Still, figuring out what exactly had happened remained a missing link.

In mid-2006 after making over a thousand telephone calls, Lino von Gartzen, one of the divers who found Saint-Exupéry's airplane, got a lead to contact Horst Rippert, a former sports journalist on German television. When Rippert received the call, he immediately confessed. The now 88-year-old said he was never completely sure if he had been the one who shot down the airplane but always had a strong feeling that he had. Last month, after finding more evidence, the mystery was finally solved. Rippert, then a young 24-year-old soldier in the German military during the war, shot down the French plane which, unknown to him at the time, was flown by Saint-Exupéry.

Like millions of children whose imagination was magically influenced by the traveling character and his friends: the fox, the pilot and the rose, Rippert had also read the fairytale-like story of "The Little Prince." The book had sold millions in Germany in the postwar era and is still one of the top five children's books in the country today. In interviews, Rippert says he regrets what he did adding that if he had known "Saint-Ex" was in that specific airplane, he would have never shot it down.

Finding the final puzzle piece has revived the memory of the still much-adored Saint-Exupéry in the media. But to those who have read his book, perhaps the faintest hope still exists that Saint-Exupéry left Earth to join the Little Prince on his tiny planet with its three volcanoes and one rose.