Cazzie
SOH-CM-2026
I have been working on a repaint for Eugene Bullard's SPAD VII the past week. Just sent it up to the Warbirds Library.
His name is Eugene Jacques Bullard, and he is the first African-American fighter pilot in history.
Bullard was an expatriate living in France, and when World War I broke out, he joined the French Infantry. He was seriously wounded, and France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire. In 1916 he joined the French Air Service and first trained as a gunner, but later trained as a pilot. When American pilots volunteered to help France and formed the famous Lafayette Escadrille, he asked to join but by the time he became a qualified pilot they were no longer accepting new recruits, so he joined the Lafayette Flying Corps instead. He served with French flying units SPA 85 and SPA 93 flying SPAD VII C1 fighters and completed 20 combat missions with 1 confirmed victory and another claimed victory.
When the United States finally joined the war, Bullard was the only member of the Escadrille or the French Flying Corps who was NOT invited to join the US Air Service. The reason? At that time the Air Service only accepted white men.
After WW I Bullard became a jazz musician in Paris and eventually owned a nightclub called ‘L’Escadrille’. When the Germans invaded France and conquered it in WW2, his Club, and Bullard, became hugely popular with German officers, but what they didn"t know was that Bullard, who spoke fluent German, was actually working for the Free French as a spy. He eventually joined a French infantry unit, but he was badly wounded and had to leave the service.
By the end of the war, Bullard had become a national hero in France, but he later moved back to the U.S. where he was of course completely unknown. Practically no one in the United States was aware of it when, in 1959, the French government named him a national Chevalier, or Knight.
In 1960, the President of France, Charles DeGaulle, paid a state visit to the United States and when he arrived he said that one of the first things he wanted to do was to meet Bullard. That sent the White House staff scrambling because most of them, of course, had never even heard of him. They finally located him in New York City, and DeGaulle traveled there to meet him personally. Eugene Bullard died in New York City of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961 at age 66. He was buried with military honors in the French War Veterans'section of Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens.
His name is Eugene Jacques Bullard, and he is the first African-American fighter pilot in history.
Bullard was an expatriate living in France, and when World War I broke out, he joined the French Infantry. He was seriously wounded, and France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire. In 1916 he joined the French Air Service and first trained as a gunner, but later trained as a pilot. When American pilots volunteered to help France and formed the famous Lafayette Escadrille, he asked to join but by the time he became a qualified pilot they were no longer accepting new recruits, so he joined the Lafayette Flying Corps instead. He served with French flying units SPA 85 and SPA 93 flying SPAD VII C1 fighters and completed 20 combat missions with 1 confirmed victory and another claimed victory.
When the United States finally joined the war, Bullard was the only member of the Escadrille or the French Flying Corps who was NOT invited to join the US Air Service. The reason? At that time the Air Service only accepted white men.
After WW I Bullard became a jazz musician in Paris and eventually owned a nightclub called ‘L’Escadrille’. When the Germans invaded France and conquered it in WW2, his Club, and Bullard, became hugely popular with German officers, but what they didn"t know was that Bullard, who spoke fluent German, was actually working for the Free French as a spy. He eventually joined a French infantry unit, but he was badly wounded and had to leave the service.
By the end of the war, Bullard had become a national hero in France, but he later moved back to the U.S. where he was of course completely unknown. Practically no one in the United States was aware of it when, in 1959, the French government named him a national Chevalier, or Knight.
In 1960, the President of France, Charles DeGaulle, paid a state visit to the United States and when he arrived he said that one of the first things he wanted to do was to meet Bullard. That sent the White House staff scrambling because most of them, of course, had never even heard of him. They finally located him in New York City, and DeGaulle traveled there to meet him personally. Eugene Bullard died in New York City of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961 at age 66. He was buried with military honors in the French War Veterans'section of Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens.
