Recovering in Lyons, he was offered a position in the French Flying Corps because he was no longer fit to serve as an infantryman. At Artois Ridge, for example, his company suffered 80 percent casualties.īullard was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery at the Battle of Verdun, which earned him the nickname “the Black Swallow of Death.” He also suffered a severe thigh injury. He joined the French Foreign Legion and participated in battles at the Somme, Artois Ridge, and Verdun, among others. Air ForceĪ year after Bullard arrived in Paris, in August 1914, France entered World War I.

He first went to Paris as a boxer, and his aptitude for the French language allowed him to settle in the city as a fighter and promoter.Įugene Bullard. There, he performed with a vaudeville troupe and worked as a prizefighter. In 1912 Bullard stowed away on the German merchant ship Marta Russ, bound for Aberdeen, Scotland. They accepted him into their family, and they told Eugene stories about expanded opportunities for black men in Europe. The Stanleys must have proven this for Bullard. William Bullard, whose family hailed from Haiti, had once advised Eugene that men in France and elsewhere in Europe were accepted regardless of the color of their skin. He met and traveled with the Stanley clan, a group of English gypsies that roamed across rural Georgia. Bullard, a former slave, narrowly escaped being lynched, Eugene ran away from home. The difference between his life in the United States and his life in Europe lends his life its striking cinematic scale.Īfter Eugene’s father, William O. As a young person in America, Bullard was a tight spring of potential, and it’s fascinating to see how high he flew as soon as the environment around him allowed it. During his final years, in the United States, he worked as an elevator operator.īullard’s story is particularly engaging. As an expatriate in France, he became a boxer, soldier, fighter pilot, business owner, and spy. Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1895.

Black fighter pilot