Eugene Bullard, forgotten hero, ignored in the racist US, but the most remarkable of soldiers and pilots for France in WW1 and WW2

Eugene Jacques Bullard was born in 1894, in Columbus Georgia, the seventh of ten children born to William Bullard and Josephine Thomas, a Creek Indian. Eugene’s father’s 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 labourer 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 when his father was lynched by a mob. 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 colour of his skin.

He left home seeking this paradise, France, the chance to live in France was nothing less than a fulfillment of a dream for Eugene Bullard.   He settled in Paris and was soon employed in the world of boxing.

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.

After five weeks of training he was assigned to the Moroccan Division, Third Marching Regiment, which he said contained 54 different nationalities. 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. Bullard’s company lost some 80 percent of its strength with only 54 of its 250 men left standing.

Bullard was sent into battle again during September 1915, the Champagne Offensive. The battle and the rain started on the 25th  and went through the 28th without a let up. The infantry had to bear the brunt of the battle as usual because there 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.

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 from his wounds 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.

Eugene was sent to several more flying schools and learned to fly the Caudron G-3 and the Caudron G-4. 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.”

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.

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 US Army Air Corps 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 cowardly ignored for the duration of the war by the US Army Air Corp. 74 years later it was posthumously given, and ranked him a Lt.

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. 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.  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.

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.

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, and 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. 

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 was presented the honor of relighting the flame.

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.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2005/3tri05/chivaletteeng.html
and  http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/7160
inspired by http://justacargal.blogspot.com/2014/11/eugene-jacques-bullard-unknown-american.html

skip the first 26 minutes to get to his entry into the French Foreign Legion, and the beginning of his military career