<i>Flight to Arras</i>&nbsp;is a&nbsp;memoir&nbsp;recounting the author&#39;s role in the French Air Force as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the&nbsp;Battle of France&nbsp;in 1940.&nbsp;The book condenses months of his flights into a single terrifying mission over the town of&nbsp;Arras. At the start of the war there were only fifty reconnaissance crews, of which twenty-three were in his unit. Within the first few days of the German invasion of France in May 1940, seventeen of the crews were sacrificed recklessly, he writes &quot;like glasses of water thrown onto a forest fire&quot;.&nbsp;Saint-Exup&eacute;ry survived the French defeat but refused to join the&nbsp;Royal Air Force over political differences with&nbsp;de Gaulle.&nbsp;In July 1944, &quot;risking flesh to prove good faith&quot;, he failed to return from a recon mission over France.