Re: MIAs From 2 Different Countries, Side by Side in Death

Date: April 21, 2004

"Chesterfield woman privy to news about the recovery of a famous French plane

BY WILL JONES TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

One of Jean Riley Martin's neighbors came running to her door two weeks ago with news about the lost plane of Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Martin, 80, beamed.

She had known for months that French deep-sea divers had recovered wreckage of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning believed to be Saint-Exupery's.

He was a pilot and the author and illustrator of the beloved children's story "Le Petit Prince" ("The Little Prince"). Saint-Exupery left on a reconnaissance mission for the Allies during World War II on July 31, 1944, and never returned.

His disappearance has carried the same mystique in France as Amelia Earhart's has in the United States. Her plane vanished in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean during her historic attempt to fly around the world.

Before it was announced and made international news, the discovery of Saint-Exupery's plane "was a big secret," said Martin, who lives in northern Chesterfield County. "I feel I've been in on all of this very close."

What made her privy to the work of French divers searching for the plane of a French author and war hero?

The answer is simple. The divers' search led them to another lost P-38 from World War II - her husband's.

Second Lt. James G. Riley Jr. was lost in battle off the coast of southern France on Jan. 27, 1944, six months before Saint-Exupery's plane vanished in the same area. Riley was 20; Saint-Exupery 44.

Philippe Castellano, one of the principal divers, was so moved after recovering pieces of Riley's plane in 1997 that he wrote a conversation he imagined Riley and Saint-Exupery having in heaven.

Martin and Riley's life together was brief but momentous. They were high-school sweethearts in New York when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. They were newlyweds and expectant parents when Riley, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps cadet program, was called to war in the summer of 1943.

The following February, Martin was in the hospital preparing to deliver twin daughters when the War Department sent word that Riley was missing in action.

A month later, one of the twins, Catherine, died of a congenital heart condition. Martin clung to the hope that her husband was alive, but in April 1945, the War Department sent a letter declaring Riley killed in action. Martin later remarried, had four other children and divorced.

Almost two years ago, she was researching her husband's war experience when she learned his plane had been found. She was floored, because she had always thought it exploded.


Last May, she traveled to the French Riviera to meet Castellano and the other divers. They treated her like a dignitary and escorted her by boat to the spot in La Ciotat Bay where the wreckage was pulled from the water.

Martin returned home with a piece of the plane - an air intake scoop of a supercharger - mounted on Plexiglas. She displays it prominently on a handmade table in her living room.

Martin said she's known since her trip that divers found in 2000 what they be lieved was wreckage of Saint-Exupery's plane.

They were led to that part of the Mediterranean Sea, between Marseilles and Cassis, two years earlier when a fisherman, Jean-Claude Bianco, found a silver bracelet with the inscription "Saint-Exupery" and the name of his wife, Consuelo.

That discovery prompted another diver to recall seeing debris of a plane in the same area in the 1980s.

"We knew, but it had to be proved to the satisfaction of the French authorities, so it was kept secret," Martin said.

The matter was so hush-hush that Martin and Castellano would not refer to Saint-Exupery in their correspondence. For example, his Christmas card from last year shows the wreckage of Saint-Exupery's P-38 but identifies it only as "Lockheed Lightning 42-68223."

"Those of us who are in the know, know," Martin said.

Castellano had planned to travel to Chantilly this month to research Saint-Exupery and his plane at the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

He canceled the trip - and a visit to Martin's home in Chesterfield - when he got the information electronically, Martin said.

Researchers were able to definitively link the wreckage to Saint-Exupery by matching a serial number on one of the pieces - 2734 L - to a number shown in a technical drawing of Saint-Exupery's plane.

"There is no arguing with that," Patrick Grandjean, a marine archaeologist with the French Ministry of Culture, told The Christian Science Monitor. "We can be perfectly certain."

Early this month, Castellano told Martin in an e-mail how excited he was finally be able to tell the world about the "mystery" of Saint-Exupery. He followed up a few days later, explaining how the announcement was made in Marseilles to reporters from CNN and other media outlets.

"This is our holy grail," Castellano told the Associated Press. "We never even imagined this."

While she expected the news at some point, Martin was unaware an announcement had been made until her neighbor ran over.

A year ago, Martin rejected any notion that the discovery of her husband's plane represented any end to the story. She feels the same way now.

As for Saint-Exupery, the question remains whether he committed suicide, was shot down or had mechanical problems.

For Riley, pieces of his plane continue to be retrieved by Castellano's team of divers. Nearly 60 years ago, the wreckage was deemed "nonrecoverable."

And for Martin, she hopes to see her French friends again when she travels to Wisconsin in June to be interviewed for a documentary about the two P-38 pilots who flew for the Allies in life, and are now united in death.

"These are momentous parts of the story," she said. "Of course, the friendships will continue."

Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones[at]timesdispatch[dot]com"