The Real Story of the Only Black Pilot in WWI

[admiral]

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/fo...ic=12969&st=20

Eugene Jacques Bullard

Of more than 200 Americans who flew for France during WWI, one of particular uniqueness was Eugene Bullard, the only Black pilot of WWI. A great tribute to Bullard is found in the famous book by Nordhoff and Hall, The Lafayette Flying Corps, published in 1920.

"The writer will never forget one occasion when he was waiting at 23 Avenue du Bois to see Dr. Gros. Suddenly the door opened to admit a vision of military splendor such as one does not see twice in a lifetime. It was Eugene Bullard.

His jolly black face shone with a grin of greeting and justifiable vanity. He wore a pair of tan aviator's boots which gleamed with a mirror-like luster, and above his breeches smote the eye with a dash of vivid scarlet. His black tunic, excellently cut and set off by a fine figure, was decorated with a pilot's badge, a Croix de Guerre, the fourragere of the Foreign Legion, and a pair of enormous wings, which left no possible doubt, even at a distance of fifty feet, as to which arm of the Service he adorned. The eleces-pilotes gasped, the eyes of the neophytes stood out from their heads, and I repressed a strong instinct to stand at attention.

There was scarcely an American at Atord who did not know and like Bullard. He was a brave, loyal, and thoroughly likable fellow, and when a quarrel with one of his superiors caused his withdrawl from the Aviation, there was scarcely an American who did not regret the fact. He was sent to the 170th French Infantry Regiment in January, 1918..."

Following WWI, Bullard remained in France until the German occupation of Paris in 1940, at which time he had to flee the country because of his previous activities of spying against the Nazis. He returned to the U.S. and lived in New York City until his death in 1961. Thus passed from the scene the first black pilot in the history of military aviation.

* Bullard's Medals
* The cover of The Black Swallow of Death a book about Bullard.

At the dawn of World War I, he joined the French Foreign Legion, engaging in hand-to-hand combat in some of the most hotly contested battles of the war. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of Verdun. Undaunted, following his recovery, he requested a transfer to the French Flying Corps. On May 7, 1917 Eugene Jacques Bullard became the world's first African American fighter pilot. In his distinguished career he flew 20 missions against the German forces, fought in numerous "dog fights" and shot down at least five enemy aircraft - which certified him as an "Ace". He received France's highest awards, the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d' Honneur. He was championed as a national hero.

When the United States entered the war, Bullard attempted to join the U.S. Army Air Corps, but was rejected because African Americans were barred from flying at that time. France also disappointed him by proving not to be as egalitarian as his father had led him to believe. He was not given promotion appropriate to his status because of the reluctance to have an African American in command of whites.

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Eugene Jaques Bullard & mascot
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...uesbullard.jpg

His medals and ribbons.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...u/a2d50d7b.jpg

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EUGENE JACQUES BULLARD
Eugene Jacques Bullard was born in 1894 in Columbus, Ga. He left home at the age of 8 in search of France where, as his father had told him, "Man was judged by his merit, not the color of his skin."

After two years of wandering, Bullard stowed away on a steamer sailing from New York to Scotland. For 10 years he embarked upon various livelihoods, eventually becoming known as a successful welterweight prize fighter.

In October 1914, as World War I began, he joined the French Foreign Legion, engaging in hand-to-hand combat in some of the most hotly contested battles of the war. He was wounded twice.

In October 1916, he was selected for pilot training and on May 7, 1917, he became the world's first black fighter pilot. As an enlisted pilot, Bullard scored two "kills," but only one of them was confirmed. His second kill, early in November 1917, however, was definite.

In post-war France, Bullard, a national hero, became a successful night club owner and popular musician in Paris. He married a countess and became the father of two daughters.

When World War II erupted, he was a member of the underground and an associate of the famed French spy and resistance leader Cleopatra Terrier. He was severely wounded in July 1940 fighting Nazis in Europe and was evacuated to New York City.

In 1954, Bullard was recalled to Paris by the French government to rekindle, along with two white Frenchmen, the everlasting flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc of Triumph in Paris.

A year later, President Charles De Gaulle internationally embraced him as a French hero. Bullard died on Oct. 12, 1961. He was buried with honors by French war officers in Flushing, N.Y

http://www.toptags.com/aama/bio/men/ebull.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Bullard

Eugene Bullard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Eugene Bullard in uniform
Eugene Bullard (9 October 1895 – 12 October 1961) was the first Black military pilot.

He was born Eugene Jacques Bullard in Columbus, Georgia, in the United States. His father was known as "Big Chief Ox" and his mother was a Creek Indian; together, they had ten children. Bullard stowed away on a ship bound for Scotland to escape racial discrimination (he later claimed to have had witnessed his father's narrow escape from lynching as a child).

While in the United Kingdom he worked as a boxer and also worked in music hall. On a trip to Paris he decided to stay and joined the French Foreign Legion upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Wounded in the 1916 battles around Verdun, and already awarded the Croix de Guerre, Bullard transferred to the Lafayette Flying Corps in the French Aéronautique Militaire and was eventually assigned to 93 Spad Squadron on 17 August 1917, were he flew some twenty missions and is thought to have shot down two enemy aircraft.

With the entry of the United States into the war the US Army Air Service convened a medical board in August 1917 for the purpose of recruiting Americans serving in the Lafayette Flying Corps. Although he passed the medical examination, Bullard was not accepted into American service because Blacks were barred from flying in US service at that time. Bullard was discharged from the French Air Force after getting into a fight with an officer while off duty and was transferred back to the French infantry in January 1918, where he served until the Armistice.

Following the end of the war, Bullard remained in Paris. He began working in nightclubs and eventually owned his own. He married the daughter of a French countess but the marriage soon ended in divorce, with Bullard taking custody of their two daughters. His work in nightclubs brought him many famous friends, among them Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, and Langston Hughes. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Bullard (who spoke German), readily agreed to a request from the French to spy on German agents frequenting his club in Paris.

After the German breakthrough and invasion of the French Third Republic in 1940, Bullard took his daughters and fled south, out of Paris. In Orléans he joined a group of soldiers defending the city and suffered a spinal wound in the fighting. He was helped to flee to Spain by a French spy and in July 1940 he returned to the United States.

Bullard spent some time in a hospital in New York for his spinal injury, but he would never fully recover. During and after World War II, when seeking work in the United States, he found that the fame he enjoyed in France had not followed him to New York. He worked in a variety of occupations, as a perfume salesman, a security guard, and as interpreter for Louis Armstrong, but his back injury severely restricted what he was able to do.

For a time he attempted to regain his nightclub in Paris, but his property had been destroyed during the Nazi occupation, and he settled for a financial settlement from the French government which allowed him to purchase an apartment in New York’s Harlem district.

In the 1950s, Bullard was a relative stranger in his own homeland. His daughters had married, and he lived alone in his Harlem apartment, which was decorated with pictures of the famous people he had known, and with a framed case containing his 15 French war medals. His final job was as an elevator operator at the Rockefeller Center, where his fame as the “Black Swallow of Death” was unknown.

In 1954, the French government invited Bullard to Paris to rekindle (together with two Frenchmen) the everlasting flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe and in 1959 he was made a chevalier (knight) of the Légion d'honneur.

Even so, the last years of his life were spent in relative obscurity and poverty in New York City where he died of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961. He was buried with honors by French War Officers in the French War Veteran's section of the Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens. In 1972, his exploits as a pilot were put in print with the book The Black Swallow of Death.

On 23 August 1994, thirty-three years after his death, and seventy-seven years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917, Eugene Bullard was posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.