Cazzie
SOH-CM-2026
I posted this on the wrong forum originally, the FS2004 forum, The repaint is not for Fs2004, sorry. I have been working on this 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.
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.