Corporal Eugene Jacques Bullard

First black American fighter pilot

By William I. Chivalette

America’s first black aviator did not fly for the country of his birth America, but for his
adopted country of France. A country for which he was severely wounded and received
many medals for valor. Gene himself was a man who hesitated to speak of himself but
one who stood on the principles of honesty and integrity. He treated everyone as he
wished to be treated and because of that he was very well liked. He lived by the belief
that all men were created equal and should be treated accordingly.

Eugene Jacques Bullard was born on October 9, 1894, in Columbus Georgia, the seventh
of ten children born to William (Octave) Bullard, a black from Martinique, and Josephine
(“Yokalee”) Thomas, a Creek Indian. Eugene’s father could trace their family roots as far
back as the American Revolution. His family came from Martinique, an Island in the
West Indies and spoke French as an everyday language. They arrived in America as
slaves when their French owners fled the Haitian revolution. His mother died at age
thirty three when Eugene was only five, leaving his father to raise him. Eugene said his
father was an educated man who worked hard as a laborer and treasured his hours at
home telling his children tales from the books he read. It was his father’s influence and
those stories that would shape Eugene’s direction in life.

Eugene, divided by family loyalty and a quest for freedom, tearfully left his Columbus,
Georgia home in 1902 at the tender age of eight. The catalyst for his early departure was
the near unjust lynching of his father. The latter incident brought to Eugene’s mind the
words his father had spoken earlier to him: in France a man is accepted as a man
regardless of the color of his skin. He left home seeking this paradise, this France.

Because of his fourth grade education, and his young age, he wandered throughout the
southeastern United States, mostly at night to avoid hostile whites, searching for the ways
and means to travel to France. He stayed with Gypsies for a year and learned how to
handle horses and did a little racing. He found he was skilled as a jockey and won a
number of unofficial races all the time putting his money away in the hopes of traveling
to France. He worked his way towards the seaport in Norfolk, Virginia and after four
years of wandering and working at odd jobs to stay alive, he stowed away on a German
ship bound for Aberdeen, Scotland-he was 12 years old.

He soon moved from Aberdeen to Glasgow and worked as a lookout man for gamblers
and earned pennies as a whistler. He stayed in Glasgow for five months then moved to
the larger seaport town of Liverpool, England. There he worked as a longshoreman and
earned six shillings a day. He was still very young and light and the work soon wore him
down. He found work as a helper on a fish wagon and doing odd jobs. Later he worked
at an amusement park. He earned extra money by dodging balls people threw at him,
money that allowed him free time, which he spent at the local gym.
Eugene made it his business to be at Chris Baldwin’s Gymnasium daily when he wasn’t
working. Around the gym he did everything the owner wanted and his quick, warm
smile and sunny nature made him popular and he made friends with most of the boxers.
Soon he was being coached and worked in the ring with anyone who the manager asked
him to. He started as a bantam weight but within a year of lifting weights and working
out he worked up to light weight. He was just sixteen years old.

After a successful ten round fight against Billy Welsh he was noticed by and became a
protégé of the renowned boxer the Dixie Kid. Eugene quickly developed as an aspiring
fighter, winning bouts in England and France as a welterweight. When he finally got his
bout in France, boxing in Paris at the Elysee Montmartre, it was November 28, 1913.
From the moment he first set foot in France he knew this was the place he belonged, and
that first visit cemented his long-held aspiration
of moving to Paris.
Eugene Bullard, left poses during his
boxing days circa 1913. Photograph
courtesy of the National Museum of the
Air Force.

Not long after he returned to Liverpool, Gene,

with the help of the Dixie Kid, joined a traveling
act called "Freedman's Pickaninnies." They sang
and danced and made people laugh with their
jokes and slapstick comedy. He signed on
because one of their stops was scheduled to be at
the Bal Tabarin in Paris.

Soon after joining, the troupe began a tour of the

continent where they amused audiences all over
Europe and Russia. After Russia, they performed
at the Winter Garden in Berlin, Germany, and
finally Paris. When Freedman’s Pickaninnies left
Paris Eugene was not with them. The chance to live in France was nothing less than a
fulfillment of a dream for Bullard. He settled himself in Paris, found a place to stay and
was soon employed back in the world of boxing.

Gene easily picked up languages and quickly learned to speak French quite well and
picked up a little German when he performed in Berlin. His fellow boxers who could not
speak French used Gene as an interpreter and he was soon setting up their boxing
matches. Eugene described his fellow boxers as generous, kind people who showed their
appreciation for his help. He was soon making more money then he previously had in
England.

Eugene Bullard was a very happy man who quickly discovered that his father had been
right about France. He expressed his feelings like this, "it seems to me that the French
democracy influenced the minds of both white and black Americans there and helped us
all to act like brothers as near as possible…It convinced me too that God really did create
all men equal, and it was easy to live that way."

By August 1914 the world was plunged into war and the French nation sustained a half-
million casualties before the year was out. A number of Eugene’s friends were on the
casualty list but Bullard, not yet 19 years
old, was too young to be accepted to
fight for his adopted country. His love
for his new country and his departed
friends spurred him on to join the French
Foreign Legion. Bullard joined his
fellow American expatriates in the
French Foreign Legion on 9 October, his
19th birthday. He went to the Recruiting
Bureau on Boulevard des Invalides, Paris
and enlisted. He was sent to the
Tourelles Barracks on Avenue Gambetta
in Paris for training. Training was tough
but Eugene’s physical conditioning for
The picture left depicts a young Eugene
Bullard in Legionnaire Uniform. Circa
October 1914 – 11 November 1917.
Courtesy of the Air Force Enlisted
Heritage Hall, Maxwell Air Force Base-
Gunter Annex, Alabama.

boxing made it a little easier than many of his fellow recruits.

After five weeks of training he was assigned to the Moroccan Division, Third Marching
Regiment, which he said contained 54 different nationalities. Eugene Bullard and his
comrades were sent to the Somme front where 300,000 Frenchmen were lost by the end
of November. Bullard and his fellow legionnaires did most of their fighting with the
bayonet, if they weren't cut down by machine gun fire first. Battle casualties were very
heavy.

As much a warrior as an adventurer and boxer, Eugene participated in some of the most
heavily contested battles of 1914 through 1916. Besides the battles of the Somme front
he participated in battles at Artois Ridge, Mont-Saint-Eloi, and they assaulted the German
positions at Souchez and Hill 119.

Because of German atrocities Legionnaire officers ordered that no prisoners were to be

taken, so the Germans retaliated by declaring that all captured legionnaires were to be
shot. Because of this and the hard fighting by May 9, 1915 they would lose so many men
in Eugene’s Third Marching Regiment that it would be dissolved and the second and
third regiments would combine to form the First and Second Regiments. For example at
the Battle of Artois Ridge 4,000 men participated but only 1,700 survived. Bullard's
 company lost some 80 percent of its strength with
only 54 of its 250 men left standing.

Occasionally before a battle each man was given, as

a means of fortifying his fighting spirit, a drink of
Tafia, a strong drink that was designed to spur a
man's courage. Bullard wrote of it, "you wanted to
fight, sing, dance, or anything. Oh, boy, what a
wonderful feeling.”

Bullard was sent into battle again during the

September 1915, Champagne Offensive. The battle
and the rain started on the 25th at 4 A.M. and went
through the 28th without a let up. The infantry had
to bear the brunt of the battle as usual because there

The photograph left, shows Eugene Bullard in his

French uniform. Please note the collar insignia that
indicates his assignment to the 170th French unit. The
photograph is circa 1917. Photograph is courtesy of the
National Museum of the Air Force.

were no tanks in the Battle of Champagne. Five hundred men began the battle, but at the
first evening's roll call only 31 remained - a 94 percent casualty rate. Eugene received
what he called “a little head wound” during the battle. “In the Legion, as long as you
could walk or your trigger finger is not out of commission, you are good for the service.”
Bullard’s regiment had lost many of their men and seemed to bear the brunt of every
offensive. The unit was basically disbanded in October and Bullard was sent to join the
170th Infantry, the "Swallows of Death." This was the unit from which Bullard took the
name, The Black Swallow of Death. The German nickname for the unit was “The
Chimney Swifts of Death.”

Verdun became Bullard's next battlefield. The 170th marched for three days and three
nights until, on the 21st of February, 1916, they arrived early in the morning in the region
of Verdun. Bullard said it was obvious they had arrived in hell. He said, “I thought I had
seen fighting in other battles but no one has ever seen anything like Verdun – not ever
before or ever since.”

The Germans codenamed Verdun Operation Execution Place. It was aptly named. In the
10 months of Verdun more than 250,000 died, 100,000 were missing and 300,000 had
been gassed or wounded. On March 5th 1916 Bullard received the wounds that removed
him from the ground war and subsequently awarded The Croix de Guerre and Medaile
Militaire.
While he was convalescing in Lyons, the third largest city in France, from his wounds
(they thought he would never walk again) Eugene gained his first bit of fame when he
was interviewed by Will Irwin of The Saturday Evening Post. Since he was no longer fit
for duty with the infantry, Eugene was
afforded the opportunity to join the
French Flying Corp. An American
friend of Bullard’s bet him two
thousand dollars that he could not get
into aviation and become a pilot.
Eugene, perhaps bolstered by the
challenge, soon earned his wings from
the aviation school in the city of Tours
on May 5, 1917, and just as promptly
collected his two thousand dollars.
This made Bullard the very first black
fighter pilot in history.
Left is Eugene Bullard’s 1917 Pilot’s
License and I.D. Card. It is currently on
display at the Air Force Enlisted Heritage
Hall, Maxwell AFB-Gunter Annex,
Alabama.
Eugene was sent to several more flying
schools and learned to fly the Caudron G-3 and the Caudron G-4. It took Eugene much
longer than other students to be assigned to the front. Inquires were made because France
needed pilots and Eugene seemed to be held back for no good reason. After that he was
soon assigned to the now famous Lafayette Escadrille, Spad 93 flying Spad V11s and
Nieuports. He said, "I was treated with respect and friendship - even by those from
America. Then I knew at last that there are good and bad white men just as there are good
and bad black men."
The beautiful painting right, of Eugene Bullard as the “Black
Swallow of Death,” was done by MSgt (ret.) Carl W. Moore.
It is currently on display at the Air Force Enlisted Heritage
Hall, Maxwell Air Force Base-Gunter Annex, Alabama.

Corporal Eugene Bullard painted a red bleeding heart

pierced by a knife on the fuselage of his Spad. Below
the heart was the inscription “Tout le Sang qui coule
est rouge!” Roughly translated it says “All Blood
Runs Red.

Eugene’s first mission was on September 8, 1917. He

was flying a Nieuport that he called a real sweetheart,
on a reconnaissance mission over the city of Metz.
He went up that day and from then on never missed a
mission. Bullard claimed two “kills,” but he received
confirmation on only one. One “kill” remained
unverified because the German Fokker fell behind enemy lines. No one doubted he had
shot the aircraft down. His mechanics found seventy-eight bullet holes in his plane. His
second kill was in November 1917, and there was no doubt about this one. He shot down
a German Pfalze after the pilot went into a classic Immelmann turn, flying nose up and
then turning backward, to attempt to come in from behind. Bullard ducked into a cloud
bank and emerged below and to the right of his foe where he pulled in behind him and
shot the German down. This one was confirmed.

Eugene had a wonderful personality and made friends easily. He was very well liked and
admired by other escadrille members. James Norman Hall and Charles B. Nordhoff, who
were collaborators on The Mutiny on the Bounty, both
served in the escadrille and said that Eugene Bullard was
almost universally liked. George Dock recalled him to be
a humorous, brave and self-reliant man. Charles
Kinsolving noted that Bullard had no fear.

The picture left, denotes the aviator Eugene Bullard,

Lafayette Escadrille Flying Corps, posing by his Spad
airplane along with his pet monkey Jimmie, who he flew
with. He bought Jimmie in Paris, circa 1915. The
photograph is courtesy of the Air Force Enlisted Heritage
Hall, Maxwell Air Force Base-Gunter Annex, Alabama.

When the United States entered World War I Eugene

Bullard wanted to transfer to his country’s air force. By
that time he had fought for over three years in the war and
been wounded four times, twice in the battle of Verdun.
He had spent eight months in hospitals recovering from
war wounds, earned medals for valor, and was now a
military pilot with confirmed kills. As a pilot and an American he was invited to transfer
to the American Air Force with the promise of being promoted. After passing the
physical, when many other American pilots departed to fight with fellow Americans,
Bullard’s application was ignored for the duration of the war.

On November 11, 1917, Bullard was transferred from the French Air Service and sent to
his old unit the 170th Infantry, where he performed non combat jobs in one of the service
companies until the end of the war. Eugene wrote in his auto biography that he had a
quarrel in a café with a French Captain who insulted him because of his race. His friends
however, tell another story. One night when he was returning late from a 24 hour leave
in Paris, he tried to enter a covered military truck to catch a ride. He was pushed out onto
a rain-soaked, muddy road. He tried to enter again and was booted in the chest. Bullard,
angry, grabbed the boot, pulled its owner from the truck, and knocked him backward into
a ditch. The man turned out to be a French Lieutenant. Regardless of circumstance, an
assault on an officer was a very serious offense, but Bullard's heroic record and wounds
saved him from a court martial - he was simply returned to his old infantry unit.
In October, 1919, Eugene Bullard was discharged from the armed forces of France, a
national hero of significant standing. He decided to remain in Paris and soon married a
French Countess and fathered three children, one boy and two girls. The boy died soon
after his birth from double pneumonia. His marriage failed after his wife inherited
money and wanted Eugene to retire and be with her socially full time. But he loved
people and his life the way it was, so they eventually went their separate ways. Both
were of the Catholic faith and did not believe in divorce. When his former wife died six
years after their separation, Gene took custody of his two daughters.

At the nightclub, Le Grand Duc, where he was the host and part owner, Bullard
entertained the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gloria Swanson and
England's Prince of Wales. He opened his own club soon after his marriage which soon
became one of Paris’ most famous entertainment spots for singers and musicians of the
time.

Then, in 1939, war once again threatened the nation Eugene once more answered the call
to duty. In July 1939, he joined the French underground and resistance movement. He
spoke three languages including German, and readily agreed to honor a request to spy for
France. The Germans arrogantly
felt that no black man could
properly understand their language,
so Bullard was quite successful in
this endeavor. Eugene worked
occasionally with the famous
French spy Cleopatra Terrier.
Left, Eugene Bullard poses in a
French poster from his Athletic Club.
After WWI and before WWII he
owned both an affluent night club and
his popular Athletic Club. Photograph
courtesy of the National Museum of
the Air Force.

But as Paris was being overrun by

the German army, Gene fled the city with his daughters. Upon arriving in Orleans he
joined some uniformed troops who were defending the city. When the group Bullard was
with came under heavy attack, his dozen or so compatriots were killed and he was badly
wounded.

Rather than allow him to be captured and interrogated by the Gestapo, his espionage
partner, Kitty, was able to successfully doctor his wounds and smuggled him to Spain
with his daughters. Later he was medically evacuated to the United States.

Fully recovered in New York City and joined by his daughters Eugene settled down to
rebuild his life. He was thrilled to again see America, and he soon found work as an
elevator operator in Rockefeller Center. It was the job he would hold until he retired.
Perhaps through disinterest or uncaring, America never recognized or realized the legacy
of the brave and noble Corporal Eugene Bullard. But France never forgot.

In 1954, the French government requested his presence to help relight the Eternal Flame
of the Tomb of the Unknown French Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Eugene,
along with two white French men, was presented the honor of relighting the flame. Yet,
when he returned to America, it failed to recognize him as the hero he was.

In 1959 at age 65, he was named Knight of the Legion of Honor in a lavish ceremony in
New York City. Dave Garraway interviewed him on the Today Show, still America did
nothing to acknowledge this honor or acknowledge his place in history.

President-General Charles de Gaulle of France, while visiting New York City, publically
and internationally embraced Eugene Bullard as a true French hero in 1960.

On 12 October, 1961, after suffering a long illness due to the wounds he received,
Eugene Jacques Bullard passed away. But, again, France did not forget. On 17 October,
with the tri-color of France draping his coffin, he was laid to rest with full honors by the
Federation of French War Officers at Flushing Cemetery in New York.

When Eugene was awarded the Legion of Honor several years before his death, he tried
to explain his feelings about both France and America. He said, “The United States is my
mother and I love my mother, but as far as France is concerned, she is my mistress and
you love your mistress more than you love your mother—
but in a different way.”

The first black fighter pilot in the world, the Black

Swallow of Death, a man who had seen much war, was
thus given final honors by the country he had loved and
served during two world wars. On August 23, 1994,
seventy seven years after Bullard’s American flight
physical, the USAF posthumously commissioned him a
Lieutenant. *

The undated photograph right, depicts Eugene Bullard later

in life wearing many of the decorations and medals he fought
so hard to earn. The photograph is courtesy of the Air Force
Enlisted Heritage Hall.

William I. Chivalette is the Curator at the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research
Institute’s Enlisted Heritage Hall in Montgomery, Alabama. He spent 24 years in the
U.S. Air Force, retired and became the Director of the Airmen Memorial Museum in
Washington D.C. He has authored, edited or coauthored nine books including the first
USAF enlisted history, Unsung Heroes A history of the Enlisted Airmen from the Dawn of
Flight to Desert Storm. He has served at the Enlisted Heritage Hall for seven years.