Small European World:

A German fighter ace has just learned that one of his 28 wartime 'kills' was his favourite author.

Messerschmidt pilot Horst Rippert, 88, said he would have held his fire if he had known the man flying the Lightning fighter was renowned French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

The fliers clashed in the skies over southern France in July 1944.

I have heard of these stories before. I remember hearing about an WWII RAF Pilot visiting a family in Germany. Unusually, the topic of the war came up and what they did in the war. The head of the German family was also a pilot in the war. After retrieving his log books, they realized that they had first met in the air over the channel.

More here.