Eugene Bullard in uniform

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard (9 October 1894 – 12 October 1961) was the first African-American military pilot. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1920x2904, 538 KB) Original caption: EARLY YEARS -- Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first African-American combat pilot, was one of 200 Americans who flew for France in World War I. This picture comes from the gallery at this URL: http://www. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1920x2904, 538 KB) Original caption: EARLY YEARS -- Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first African-American combat pilot, was one of 200 Americans who flew for France in World War I. This picture comes from the gallery at this URL: http://www. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 402 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (712 × 1061 pixel, file size: 382 KB, MIME type: image/png) Eugene Bullard flew for the Lafayette Escadrille and was an enlisted man who was also black — one of the very few enlisted Americans... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 402 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (712 × 1061 pixel, file size: 382 KB, MIME type: image/png) Eugene Bullard flew for the Lafayette Escadrille and was an enlisted man who was also black — one of the very few enlisted Americans... October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Look up black in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Aviator (disambiguation). ...

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). Columbus is a city in Muscogee County, Georgia, United States. ... The Creeks are an American Indian people originally from the southeastern United States, also known by their original name Muscogee (or Muskogee), the name they use to identify themselves today. ... Motto: (Latin) No one provokes me with impunity(English) Wha daur meddle wi me? (Scots)[1] Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official languages English, Gaelic, Scots[2] Government  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Jack McConnell MSP Unification    - by Kenneth I... Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling · Lynching Hate speech · Hate crime · Hate groups Genocide · Holocaust · Pogrom Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing · Race war Religious persecution · Gay bashing Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism · Supremacism Kahanism Anti-discriminatory Abolitionism · Civil rights · Gay rights Womens/Universal suffrage · Mens rights Childrens rights · Youth rights Disability... Lynching is a form of violence, usually murder, conceived of by its perpetrators as extra legal punishment for offenders or as a terrorist method of enforcing social domination. ...

While in the United Kingdom he worked as a boxer and also worked in a 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 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 27 August 1917, where he flew some 20 missions and is thought to have shot down two enemy aircraft. Professional boxing bout featuring Ricardo Domínguez (left) versus Rafael Ortíz Boxing, also called pugilism (from Latin), prizefighting (when referring to professional boxing) or the sweet science[1] is a sport and martial art in which two participants of similar weight fight each other with their fists in a... Music Hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which reached its peak of popularity between 1850 and 1960. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... Legionnaire (film) The French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère) is a unique elite unit within the French Army established in 1831. ... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nikolay II Aleksey Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Robert Nivelle Herbert H. Asquith D. Lloyd George Sir Douglas Haig Sir John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna... Combatants France German Empire Commanders Philippe Pétain Robert Nivelle Erich von Falkenhayn Strength About 30,000 on 21 February 1916 About 150,000 on 21 February 1916 Casualties 378,000; of whom 120,000 died 337,000; of whom 100,000 died The Battle of Verdun was one of... The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of both Belgium and France which was first created in 1915. ... Early group photo, pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille Plaque of the 38 Members of the Lafayette Escadrille A SPAD S.XIII in Lafayette Escadrille livery James Norman Hall (1887-1951) of the Lafayette Escadrille, 1917 From left to right: Didier Masson, Willis Haviland, and Raoul Lufbery The Lafayette Escadrille (from... The familiar French military aviation roundel gave rise to similar roundels for air forces all over the world, including that of the United Kingdom (RAF), which reversed the colors on the French roundel. ... August 27 is the 239th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (240th in leap years), with 126 days remaining. ... Year 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ...

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 U.S. service at that time. Bullard was discharged from the French Air Force after fighting with another officer while off-duty and was transferred to the 170th (French) Infantry Regiment on January 11, 1918, where he served until the Armistice. The United States Army Air Service was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. ... Front page of the New York Times on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918 The armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front. ...

Following the end of the war, Bullard remained in Paris. He began working in nightclubs and eventually owned his own establishment. 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. City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... A nightclub (often dance club or club, particularly in the UK) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ... Josephine Baker, c. ... Louis Daniel Armstrong (4 August 1901[1] – July 6, 1971) (also known by the nicknames Satchmo, for satchel-mouth, and Pops) was an American jazz musician. ... Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

After the German invasion of the French Third Republic in 1940, Bullard took his daughters and fled south from 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. The French Third Republic, (in French, La Troisième République, sometimes written as La IIIe République) (1870/75-10 July 1940) was the governing body of France between the Second French Empire and the Vichy Regime. ... Orléans Cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Cross, built from 1278 to 1329; after being pillaged by Huguenots in the 1560s, the Bourbon kings restored it in the 17th century. ...

Bullard spent some time in a hospital in New York for his spinal injury, but he never fully recovered. 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 an interpreter for Louis Armstrong, but his back injury severely restricted his activities. For a time he attempted to regain his nightclub in Paris, but his property had been destroyed during the Nazi occupation, and he received a financial settlement from the French government which allowed him to purchase an apartment in New York’s Harlem district. For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ...

In the 1950s, Bullard was a relative stranger in his own homeland. His daughters had married, and he lived alone in his 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. Lower Plaza at Rockefeller Center. ...

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, he spent the last years of his life in relative obscurity and poverty in New York City where he died of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961. He was buried with military honors by French officers in the French War Veterans' section of Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens. The Landsoldaten (The Foot Soldier) monument in Fredericia, Denmark Throughout history, many soldiers have died in numerous wars without their remains being identified. ... Arc de Triomphe The Arc de Triomphe is a monument in Paris that stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly the Place de lÉtoile, at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. ... Chiang Kai-sheks Légion dhonneur. ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... Stomach cancer (also called gastric cancer) can develop in any part of the stomach and may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs; particularly the esophagus and the small intestine. ... October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Flushing Cemetery is a cemetery in Flushing in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... The Five Boroughs of New York City: 1: Manhattan 2: Brooklyn 3: Queens 4: Bronx 5: Staten Island In New York City, a borough is a unique form of government used to administer the five constituent counties that make up the city; it differs significantly from other borough forms of... Queens Borough in New York City, in yellow Queens is one of the five boroughs of New York City, USA. Geographically the largest borough in the city, Queens is home to many immigrants and two of New Yorks major airports. ...

In 1972, his exploits as a pilot were published in the book The Black Swallow of Death: The Incredible Story of Eugene Jacques Bullard, The World's First Black Combat Aviator by P.J. Carisella, James W. Ryan and Edward W. Brooke (Marlborough House, 1972). This book, with jacket art by famed WWI aviation illustrator George Evans, is part of the Bullard display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. George Evans (February 5, 1920- June 22, 2001) was an American cartoonist and comic book artist. ...

On 23 August 1994, 33 years after his death, and 77 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. August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... Second Lieutenant is the lowest commissioned rank in many armed forces. ... The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial warfare branch of the United States armed forces and one of the seven uniformed services. ...

In 2006, the movie Flyboys loosely portrayed Bullard and his comrades from the Lafayette Flying Corps. The film features digital dogfights, and Abdul Salis portrays Eugene Skinner, the character based on Bullard. ^[1] Flyboys is a 2006 drama film set during World War I. Starring James Franco, Martin Henderson, Jean Reno, Jennifer Decker, David Ellison and Tyler Labine. ... Abdul Salis is a British actor. ...

Medals

• Knight of the Légion d'honneur
• Médaille militaire
• Croix de guerre
• Volunteer's Cross (Croix du combattant volontaire)
• Wounded Insignia
• WWI commemorative medal
• WWI Victory medal
• Free French Medal
• WWII commemorative medal

Chiang Kai-sheks Légion dhonneur. ... French Military Medal The Médaille militaire (Military Medal) is a decoration of the French Republic which was first instituted in 1852. ... The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of both Belgium and France which was first created in 1915. ... The Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres in French) were French fighters who decided to go on fighting against Germany after the Fall of France and German occupation and to fight against Vichy France in World War II. General Charles de Gaulle was a member of the French Cabinet...

Reference

Sources

• Mason, Jr., Herbert Molloy. High Flew the Falcons: The French Aces of World War I. New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1965.
• Lloyd, Craig. Eugene Bullard: Black Expatriate in Jazz Age Paris. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
• P.J. Carisella, P.J., James W. Ryan and Edward W. Brooke. The Black Swallow of Death: The Incredible Story of Eugene Jacques Bullard, The World's First Black Combat Aviator. Boston, Massachusetts: Marlborough House, 1972.
• Nordhoff, Charles and James Norman Hall. The Lafayette Flying Corps. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920.

External links

• National Museum of the United States Air Force: Eugene Jacques Bullard
• Short biography by Master Sergeant Anthony Pendleton
• New Georgia Encyclopedia: Eugene Bullard
• Eugene Bullard: Black Expatriate in Jazz Age Paris
• American Volunteers in the French Foreign Legion: Eugene Bullard