Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first black military combat pilot in World War I, was born Eugene James Bullard. He led a colorful life, albeit much of it happened in Europe where his life has been surrounded by many legends. He was known as the “black swallow of death” for his courage during missions.
Bullard was born on October 9, 1895, in Columbus, Georgia, one of 10 children of William O. Bullard, and his wife, Josephine Thomas, a Creek Indian. He was a student at Twenty-eighth Street School in 1901-1906, where he learned to read and write. As a teenager, Eugene Bullard stowed away on a ship bound for Scotland, seeking to escape racial discrimination (he later claimed to have witnessed his father's narrow escape from lynching). Bullard arrived at Aberdeen, Scotland before making his way south to Glasgow. He finally arrived in Paris, France where worked as a boxer and did odd jobs in a music hall.
In 1914 at the age of 20, Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion but was pulled out of action after being injured. On leave, he bragged that he could fly a fighter plane and on a bet wrangled a spot in a French flight training school. Bullard learned to fly, joined the then small French air corps and quickly became known for flying into dangerous situations often with a pet monkey. Bullard received many awards and was highly decorated by the French government. When the United States formally entered World War I, many American expatriates applied for transfers to U.S. forces. Despite his three years of flight experience, Bullard’s application was denied, and the United States military further pressured France to permanently ground Bullard in order to uphold the U.S. policy against Negros serving as pilots. France succumbed, and Bullard was taken off of aviation duty.
After the war, Bullard discovered jazz, learning to play drums in Paris nightclubs and eventually owning two nightclubs of his own. He married Marcelle Straumann and had two daughters, but the marriage ended in divorce. After Germany invaded France in 1940, Bullard began working as a spy for the French Resistance and then escaped to the United States with his daughters. He established a new life in New York City, again working odd jobs that included selling perfume, security guard and operating the elevator of the Rockefeller Center, home of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). In 1954 Ballard's story came to the attention of The Today Show, prompting a live on air interview by then host, Dave Garroway.
Eugene Jacques Bullard died in Harlem, New York on October 12, 1961. In 1994, Bullard was honored posthumously by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
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