This is another in my “maybe a movie” series. This is a story worthy of new big action picture. My post honors the memory of a Georgia native and one of the earliest black combat pilots. Eugene Ballard (1861-1961) flew for France in WWl and earned their highest medal awarded for valor, the croix de guerre. 

I am always amazed that such an extraordinary life such as Bullard’s is not more well-known. It may have been a fear of lynchings that caused the 7th of 10 children originally to leave the United States as a teenager. He stowed away on a German freighter, arrived in Scotland, moved to London and settled in Paris, France. As a foreigner, Bullard was only able to enlist as a voulunteer for the French Foreign Legion. American aviators did fly with the French Air Service and Eugene Bullard was a member of the Lafayette Flying Corps.

After the war, Bullard remained in Paris, managing and then owning a nightclub. His club was a jazz venue, “Le Grand Duc” and his famous friends included Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong and Langston Hughes. It is said that Ernest Hemingway based a minor character on Bullard in The Sun Also Rises.

With the beginning of World War ll, this veteran celebrated for flying over twenty combat missions and who also spoke German was asked by the French government to spy on German visitors to his club. He entered military service once again in France, was wounded, eventually escaped to the United States and settled in Harlem in New York City. Once again, racial discrimination and violence found Bullard and he was injured in the Peerskill riots of 1949.

Sadly, the veteran of two World Wars, the heroic pilot with 15 French war medals lived alone and died from stomach cancer at 66. His final job was as an elevator operator at Rockerfeller Center.

33 years after his death and 77 years after the physical that should have allowed him as a non-white to fly for his own country, Eugene Bullard was posthumously commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. A statue in his honor was erected at the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, Georgia in 2019.

Find a list of books about Eugene Bullard here. 

Claude Ribbe also created a television documentary based on his book.

The movie Flyboys was loosely based on Eugene Ballard and his World War l comrades.