Rippert and Saint-Exupéry (page 8)

August 2024 update

On a recent visit to the Bletchley Park Archive I was able to examine file BLEPK.0358.3 which holds documents for the period 3 July–9 August 1944, apparently intercepted Lutfwaffe air traffic control notifications of take-offs and landings. Item PEARL/ZIP/GAG No. 561 for 31 July 1944 shows flights by the individual Staffeln of JGr. 200 (all times GMT) on 31 July 1944:

		Took off	Landed
2./JGr. 200	1 Bf 109	0702	0810
	2 Bf 109	0913	0931
	2 Bf 109	0925	1030
	2 Bf 109	1206	1228
	2 Bf 109	1353	1503
	2 Bf 109	1716	1823

1./JGr. 200	2 Bf 109	1046	[no report]

3./JGr. 200	2 Bf 109	1046	[no report]

Since these are intercepted communications, we cannot know if they are complete but this total of 15 sorties is higher than the 12 “against the partisans” which the Invasions Kalendar (see above) attributed to Jafü Süd on the 31st. My interptretation of the second and third flights on the list is that the pair taking off at 0913 GMT had to turn back for some (technical?) reason and that a replacement Rotte was dispatched at 0925. The Bf 109s up from 1206–1288 may likewise have aborted or been recalled.

Arriving on GR II/33’s airfield at Borgo, Corsica later that morning, Saint-Exupéry’s friend and fellow pilot, capitaine René Gavoille was told that he had taken off at 0845 (presumably local time = 0645 GMT). Gavoille recalled Saint-Exupéry’s mission as mapping east of Lyon and the wreck of his aircraft was eventually discovered on the seabed btween Cassis and the Île de Riou.

According to Gavoille he was expected return by 1100 GMT, a flight time of 4 hours 15 minutes but with fuel for another 90 minutes. If Saint-Exupéry crossed the coast between Marseille and Cassis, as the location of his F-5B’s wreck suggests, then he was about 137 miles (220 km) from Borgo. At the Lightning’s quoted most economical cruising speed (195 mph = 413 km/h) this was around 38 minutes’ flying time, suggesting he reached the coast by about 1020 at the latest. If the German data above is complete then two Bf 109s of 2./JGr. 200 were airborne at that time but no aircraft of Horst Rippert’s 3. Staffel took off until 1046, almost certainly too late to have intercepted an aircraft that was crossing or had already crossed out over the French coast.

NOTE: Guy Julien suggests that, based on a normal endurance of 210–250 minutes, Saint-Exupéry would have crossed the coast between 0945 and 1005 GMT.

continued on next page …

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PART EIGHT OF NINE

Information from a new source.