Saint-Exupéry's last assigned reconnaissance mission was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France ("Operation Dragoon"). Although he had been reinstated to his old squadron with the provision that he was to fly only five missions, on 31 July 1944, he took off in an unarmed P-38 on his ninth reconnaissance mission from an airbase on Corsica. To the great alarm of his squadron compatriots, he did not return, vanishing without a trace. Word of his disappearance soon spread across the literary world and then it spread into international headlines. An unidentifiable body in remnants of a uniform was found several days after his disappearance east of the Frioul archipelago south of Marseille and buried in Carqueiranne in September.