"The Black Swallow"
© 2001, by A. P. Glesner

Gray smoke drifted over embattled trenches, swirled upward, reached toward the solitary SPAD S.VII that now sped through the cloud-wispy, dull November skies. The steady, pulsing roar of its water-cooled 140hp Hispano-Sieza nearly obscured the thunder of massed French and German guns, 9000 feet below. Emblazoned upon the blue, canvas covered fuselage of the flat-winged biplane was the personal crest of its pilot, a dagger pierced heart with a motto, Taut Song Qui Est Rouge ("All Blood Runs Red").

Eugene Jacques Bullard, the leather-helmeted and goggled man in the open cockpit, had experienced less than three months of airborne combat; however, his aerial prowess had already earned him a soubriquet, "The Black Swallow of Death." Now he swiveled his head from side-to-side, peered over the cowl mounted Vickers machine gun, searched for the fearsome tri-winged Fokker flown by his foes. The sky appeared empty.

He checked his gauges, noted his fuel level, consulted his chart, calculated his range. Soon he would need to bank around east and wing home, toward the muddy fields and tar paper barracks of the Lafayette Escadrill, the famed "hat in the ring" squadron of American flyers who now fought for France.

Bullard surveyed the sky again, saw nothing. A cold rivulet of sweat coursed down his neck. The feeling was back, an eerie sense that had not failed him yet--he instinctively knew he flew not alone. The sudden chatter of a Spandaus, the zipping of enemy bullets confirmed his premonition. With a quick glance that revealed his nemesis, forty feet back, he opened the throttle, winged over and pushed his stick forward. As he rushed toward the ground at over 120 MPH, he still heard bullets ripping through fabric.

Quickly, deliberately, he hauled back on the stick. The Hispano-Sieza groaned, the SPAD shuttered and stalled, and the hunter zoomed overhead. Bullard promptly recovered, leveled off, put the foe in his cross-hairs, and the hunter became the hunted.

A bloody-red Tripe with wings of checkerboard black and white, it zig-zagged and bobbed off toward the east, home and safety. Bullard followed closely, watched tracers stream from his Vickers, tear into the fuselage, ripping off fabric and splintering wood. A black flume blossomed and billowed back, and the Tripe careened over, plunged earthward in a final, fatal dive.

It would be one more unconfirmed kill, for the duel had taken him low, beyond no-man's land and over hostile turf. German ground fire now screamed skyward.

Suddenly the Hispano-Sieza sputtered, coughed and died. Gliding over no-man's land, he barely cleared the barbed wire entanglements, skimmed over trenches filled with French poilus cheering his victory. After landing he counted 96 holes in his fuselage.

A handsome young man, posed and confident, with the physique of a prize fighter, in his carefully tailored red and black dress uniform Bullard was a "vision of military splendor." His tan flying boots gleamed with mirror-like luster, and his tunic was decorated with medals of valor, his pilot's badge, and the fourragere of a Legionnaire. Although only a corporal, his presence was so majestic that many who first met him felt the urge to salute.

This day Bullard was rightful pleased, and not just with his aerial feats, the skill and daring with which he had bested one of Germany's finest. He also knew of the recent arrival of the American Expeditionary Force in France, that its air arm was aggressively recruiting the men of the Lafayette Escadrill, enticing them with promises of promotions. Soon, he was certain, he would exchange his chevrons and pilot's badge for the gold bars and the wings a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps.

Described as a "brave, loyal, and thoroughly likeable fellow," he commanded the respect of all with whom he flew. No one ever denied this, on one ever questioned his courage or skill as a pilot. And yet after that early November day in 1917, he would spend only ten more days in the air, make only eighteen more patrols, down one more aircraft. In the end only one of the men of the Lafayette Escadrill would not receive a commission and US Air Corps pilot's wings. That man was Bullard. The French, pressured by their new allies to "consider the sensitivities of American soldiers," soon grounded Bullard for good. Transferred to the 170th French Infantry Regiment, and placed in a non-combat status, he would spend the rest of war performing meaningless tasks.

Bullard may not have been all that surprised. He was not simply the "black swallow," but also a black man, not just an American, but an African-American, at a time when countrymen of his race could expect little more than poverty, oppression, and a menial existence. Years before, to escape such a life, Bullard had commenced an odyssey that would eventually land him in France.

He had been born in 1894 in Columbus, Georgia. His father, the impoverished son of a slave, constantly told the young Bullard that he was destined for nobility, told him of a mystical faraway land called France, where the color of his skin would not matter. Consequently, at the age of ten young Bullard ran away, seeking that destiny. For the next several years he literally live like a gypsy, following colorful Romaine wagons from town to town. About the age of sixteen he finally found passage across the Atlantic, as a stowaway on a freighter bound for France. Discovered, he was placed ashore at Aberdeen, Scotland, where he spent another year earning a living running errands. From there he moved to Liverpool, England, and took up professional prizefighting. One of his last bouts finally took him to France. There, ten days after his twentieth birthday, Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.

For the next two years Bullard engaged in hand-to-hand combat in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, and was twice wounded while leading men across no-man's land. After recovering from his wounds, he enlisted in the Aviation Corps, completed flight training and was assigned to the Lafayette Escadrill, where he again proved his courage. By the end of the war he had won no less than fifteen medals for valor, in the trenches and in aerial combat.

For the next two decades he emerged himself in Parisian society's "lost generation" of expatriate Americans. He married a French countess, with whom he had two daughters, and became a successful nightclub and gymnasium owner and popular jazz musician. He might have remained there forever, were it not for the cauldron of war brewing round him.

When World War II erupted French Intelligence approached Bullard, who spoke German and well as French fluently. They asked him to aid their efforts by ease-dropping on the German agents and the fifth columnists who frequented his nightclub, L'Escadrill. He would do so until 14 June 1940, when the German army marched into Paris unopposed. The next day Bullard walked out of the city and offered his services to the 51st French Infantry, commanded by Major Roger Bader, Bullard's superior in the first war. Bader assigned Bullard to a machine gun company. The battle for France lasted five more days. Bullard's war had ended two days before, when he was severely wounded by a busting shell. He was also now wanted by the Nazis, who were spreading a form of racism across Europe more virulent than anything he may have known in his youth. He had few options now. With the help of the underground Bullard escaped France, and returned home for the first time in three decades.

Bullard settled in New York, and after recovering from his wounds, once again donned a uniform, this time as an elevator operator at Rockefeller Center. Although now employed in a manner many considered more befitting man of his race, he never surrendered his pride. Each day he performed his job with poise and military bearing. Most of those whom he served did not know that he had been beaten by police, for simply demanding his rights as a citizen, that he had lost the sight in one eye during a scuffle in which he refused to take his place at the back of a bus. They may have wondered about this middle-aged black man, this quiet, polite elevator man with the air of a general. They may have looked at the medals of valor pinned to his chest and silently asked, "what is this man's history?"

During his lifetime America cared little about his history, about his heroic service in the defense of democracy. But France would never forget. In the final decade of his life he was recalled there twice. In 1954 he was invited to help rekindle the flame at the Tomb of the French Unknown, beneath the Arc de Triumph in Paris. He was one of only three men so honored. The following year Charles de Gaulle pinned France's highest military decoration on Bullard's chest. Then, on 9 October 1959, his sixty-fourth birthday, he was summoned to the French Constellate in New York and inducted as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

By then Bullard was already battling the cancer that would kill him. Upon his death, on 12 Oct 1961, he lay in state in his Legionnaire uniform, in a tri-color draped coffin surrounded by a French guard of honor. After celebrating his life at a requiem mass at St. Vincent de Paul, hundreds followed his coffin as it wound through the streets of New York. Among them were members of the Federation of French War Veterans, France Forever, the Verdun Society, and the American Legion Paris Post #1. At the French section of the Flushing cemetery these veterans laid Bullard to rest with full military honors.

In the last years of his life Bullard may have made his peace with the land of his birth, the country where he once felt he had no future. His view may be found in the final sentence of his memoir, All Blood Runs Red: "God Bless the United States et Vive La France pour tourjoure et Mercie Dieu."

Much had changed in his life. Bullard had lived to see the first black aviator commissioned in the US military, in 1943, had read of the valorous exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen, had watched when Harry Truman integrated the American Armed Forces. He had witnessed the beginning of a civil rights movement that would finally bring equal rights to citizens such as himself.

Before he died, America had also begun to give Bullard some of the recognition he deserved. Eleanor Roosevelt had written of him in her newspaper column, "My Day," and Dave Garroway had interviewed him on the Today program. A story in True, The Men's Magazine had been subsequently followed by articles in other national magazines, including Ebony. Eleven years after his death the first book length biography appeared.

Today, at the National Air & Space Museum you may view a display dedicated to this pioneer of pioneers, Bullard the hero, the first black combat pilot, the first African-American to take to the air, the only black aviator to serve in World War I. His likeness may also be found at a mural of aviation pioneers at the St. Louis Airport, and on plaques in the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame and at the Metropolitan Airport in his hometown of Columbus.

On 9 October 1994, Georgia celebrated his hundredth birthday as "Eugene Bullard Day." Three weeks earlier America had finally redressed an injustice, when it conferred upon Bullard the status he had earned and deserved. Seventy-seven years after its due, he was posthumously inducted into the Armed Forces with the rank of second lieutenant. Today the Air Force honors him as one of their own, with exhibits at the Enlisted Heritage Hall at Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, which features his original flight certificate, and the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, where his medals of valor are displayed.

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