0.2 The great war (part i)  (Page 2/14)

Bullard’s injuries made him unfit for the infantry, but you did not need two perfectly fine legs to fly an airplane and thus he entered a French flight school in October of 1916 (African Americans will not be allowed to enroll in American flight schools until well after the Great War). Seven months later he was a full-fledged pilot and was assigned to the American flight group, Lafayette Escadrille, which at that time operated under French command as the United States would not officially join the war until April of 1918.

Bullard flew with a Rhesus monkey as a co-pilot. He purchased the monkey in Paris and named him “Jimmie.” Bullard’s nickname was the Black Swallow of Death. His insignia, visible on the fuselage, was a red heart with a knife through it and the words, "Tout le Sang qui coule est rouge!" - "All blood runs red." He even shot down a German plane in his very first dogfight and his skills as an aviator were legendary. With at least 78 bullet holes in his aircraft, Bullard successfully landed from his first dogfight, got the plan fixed, and immediately went back to the front. Bullard flew in at least twenty combat missions.

By the time the war came to an end, Bullard has received every medal that France could bestow on their military heroes. He was embraced by Charles de Gaulle, the famous World War II-era French resistance leader and future president of France. Bullard’s exploits were wildly publicized in French newspapers but sadly there is no evidence that any mainstream American newspaper reported on this war hero. One short reference to Bullard’s career as an infantryman appeared in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) publication The Crisis in January of 1918.

Although Bullard experienced professional opportunities and enjoyed a lifestyle that certainly was not equaled by most African Americans, France was not a racially perfect society. With one year left in the war, the French military suddenly ordered the removal of Bullard from the aviation corps and placed back in an all-black infantry unit. This turn in Bullard’s career was orchestrated by a white American doctor named Edmund Gros. Gros did not support the use of blacks in any American aviation capacity, to include ground crew. Although Bullard passed his required physical, to be a pilot meant that you had to be an officer or be eligible to become an officer and Bullard’s rank was Sergeant and he lacked the required education to become an officer.

Ironically, Bullard escaped the US in search of racial equality and when he found it, the US found him and stripped him of his status as an equal, even during a time of war. Bullard was transferred to a remote mountain military camp, approximately 300 miles south of Paris.

When the war came to a close, Bullard reappeared on the streets of Paris. He was frequently attacked, verbally and physically, by white American military officers. He tried to avoid the hotels, restaurants, and bars that were frequented by American servicemen because those French public spots tended to follow the Jim Crow laws and attitudes of the United States. Bullard fraternized with French troops and French (white) women. US intelligence kept one eye on Bullard and even tried to have him deported back to his birth home when the US government feared that Bullard might become a French citizen and thus could become a beacon of hope for other African Americans. Bullard remained in France, sometimes traveling to French or English colonial ports of call as part of a Franco-American jazz band or even to compete in boxing matches. He married a French woman and the couple had three children. The Bullards owned their own Parisian nightclub where they employed the famous American singer Josephine Baker and a young wanna-be-poet named Langston Hughes as a dishwasher and cook. Bullard lived the life of what you might call middle-to-upper class. But when the Germans returned in 1940 Bullard fled back to his native country.