On November 17, 1917, history’s first African American fighter pilot, Corporal Eugene Bullard of the 85th Pursuit Squadron, Lafayette Flying Corps, scored, in all likelihood, his first aerial victory. In so doing, however, he had a terrifying clash with a Grim Reaper, painted all in black, equally determined to rip his fragile craft from the skies above the Western Front and fling it, engulfed in fire, to the mud-churned earth below.
Here’s how that fateful flight began: flying opportunities had been few and far between during the previous two weeks. On the cusp of winter, the days were often cold with windswept skies and pelting rain. It was virtually impossible to conduct combat sorties in anything but clear skies considering the exposed cockpits and severe airframe limitations of the early flying machines. The seventeenth, however, had dawned bright and clear—although it remained decidedly chilly.
At dawn, the barracks steward raced through the rooms shaking pilots out of their deep slumbers—or, in some cases, hangovers. The commandant had deemed it a day fit for missions. Bullard had been sound asleep but jumped up quickly, already fully dressed. This was not unusual, since many of the pilots slept in their flying gear when they were on duty. It saved precious minutes toward getting aloft.
As Bullard remembered, “There was no breakfast in those days. No meals were served until after eleven. If a pilot had a morning mission, it was hot coffee, then off to the field.”
Bullard raced to the f light line where Sergeant Viel, his mechanic, had his SPAD VII warmed up, prop spinning, ready to fly. He quickly scanned the cockpit and the big Vickers guns with which his aircraft was armed. All seemed to be in order. A group of fourteen planes was soon in the air, headed for the German lines, which that day would be the contested turf around Metz. Jimmy, Bullard’s usual “copilot,” a feisty and fearless capuchin monkey, was not along for this ride. The “little bugger” was aggravated by a sniffling cold, so Bullard had left him in the care of fellow aviators back at the base. It was Jimmy’s lucky day.
At a little more than 3,000 feet, it was desperately frigid. Even Bullard’s fur-lined boots were insufficient to keep his feet from becoming numb. This was a significant danger for the pilots in that frozen extremities could be a hindrance to working the rudder pedals in a dogfight. Many early aviators suffered from frostbite and blackened or even lost toes were not uncommon.
As Bullard shivered in the prop blast, several dark shapes poked in and out of the low, scudding clouds a few miles ahead. Captain Pinsard (the flight leader for that mission) made the hand signal to “pursue.” As the French flew closer, the identity of the ships in the other group became clear: the “Boche.” (French slang for “a German soldier.” Term originated in the phrase “tête de caboche,” or “cabbage head.”) It was a mixed group of ten Fokkers, including four all-black triplanes. The French had a height and sun advantage, so they sped up and dove eagerly on their foes.
The sky was instantly transformed into a mass of swirling machines, each trying to blast the other apart. Bullets and black smoke filled the air. Bullard was soon engulfed in a maze of enemies, one of whom swooped in and made a lateral pass. He felt his plane shudder as rounds ripped through the fabric and tore into the fuselage immediately behind his cockpit. He desperately spun away with a deft barrel roll left, followed by a nose-up climb at full power.
His “crate” was holding together, Bullard felt, so the damage was not fatal. After climbing several hundred feet he kicked the rudder pedal hard left and made a port-leaning full-on dive, down, down. The German who had attacked him was nowhere in sight. Bullard had ended up about a half mile from the circle of snarling aircraft.
At that moment, one of the black triplanes punched out of the melee. For whatever reason, the German pilot did not see Bullard. The Fokker completed a wide, sweeping turn, away from Bullard, apparently intent on getting enough space to come about and plunge back into the dogfight. Bullard was on him like fleas on a hound dog.
He couldn’t believe his luck. He fell in behind the big plane and as soon as he was wings level, he steadied the aircraft with his right hand on the control stick, and with his left he squeezed his firing button. Two dozen rounds hammered into the black shape. Bullard could see bits of material flake off the plane and a wisp of black smoke began to trail from the engine. Was this it? Would this be his first successful score? And such a big one, to boot?
Before he had time to fully contemplate his mates toasting him with champagne, the Fokker, in a series of lightning moves, pulled up, over and away. Bullard had lost him. Where could he have gone so quickly? The answer was soon obvious: the more experienced German and his big three-winged machine was squarely on Bullard’s tail. Bullets began tearing into his fuselage again.
He ducked the other way this time, to the right and down. The Fokker stayed with him, hammering away. The earth began to race toward him at a frightening clip. How was he going to shake his tormentor? Providence intervened.
Bullard’s initial attack had apparently done some serious damage. The black cloud from the German’s triplane thickened. His motor coughed and sputtered. Before the German pilot could finish his attack, his engine started seizing. Bullard’s last sight of the black-lacquered bird, from over his shoulder, revealed his opponent turning away, trailing smoke and corkscrewing toward the earth.
Meanwhile, Bullard had plunged perilously close to the ground. He was, in fact, flying between two steep hills bracketing a small valley. He was at an altitude of less than three hundred feet. As fate would have it, atop one of the hills, and very close by, was a German machine-gun nest. As Bullard flew past, level with the gun’s lofty perch, the German crew opened fire. Several well-aimed slugs slammed into Bullard’s engine, causing it to fail instantly. Thick black castor oil splattered all over his windscreen as well as his face and goggles. He was effectively blind. The prop stopped spinning and the dreaded whooshing of the wind told Bullard he was going down.
Quickly wiping his goggles with a gloved hand, he gently eased up on the stick and looked for a place to set down. He didn’t have but a few seconds of time and airspace. At about thirty miles an hour, he pancaked into a muddy bog, which quickly grabbed the crippled plane in its gooey grip. Immediately, Bullard unstrapped and leaped from the aircraft seeking shelter behind the fuselage. He had no idea if he was in friendly or enemy territory, and knowing that he had been downed by ground fire, he had to wonder Is that gun still nearby?
Shots smacking into the mud all around the downed plane gave Bullard his answer. He was in somebody’s sights, and they were not friendly. Covered in muck, he decided to wait things out. When darkness fell, he’d make a break for where he thought his lines might be—presumably, in the opposite direction of where he was receiving fire. After another few minutes the gunners either lost interest or became distracted, and the firing ceased.
Right after dusk, Bullard heard voices, and they were coming toward his position. He unholstered his revolver and hunkered down closer to the skin of the plane. Much to his relief he soon discerned the voices were speaking French. One of his fellow pilots had, apparently, pinpointed the position where Bullard had gone down. It was just inside friendly lines, so the base commander sent several mechanics to try to recover the aircraft—and maybe find the pilot while they were at it.
Bullard was delighted to see friends instead of foes. With a lot of tugging and straining, they managed to extricate the plane from the mud. It was rolled to a nearby road, hooked up to a truck and, tail first, towed back to the field. One of the mechanics counted the bullet holes in Bullard’s plane: ninety-six.
Safely back at base and reasonably cleaned up, Bullard repaired to the bar, where his fellow pilots received him enthusiastically. He was then asked by Major Minard, the squadron commander, if he had wanted to commit suicide. Somewhat puzzled by the question, Bullard replied that he did not. Minard informed him that he had tangled with a member of the Red Baron’s (Manfred von Richthofen’s) famed Flying Circus, the best of the best of the German aviators. Bullard was lucky to be alive, he was told.
He was absolutely certain he had shot down his foe, Flying Circus expert aviator or not. His last glimpse of the plane told him it was certainly smoking heavily, if not on fire, and spiraling toward the ground. Maybe the pilot had been able to control the landing—or maybe he had crashed uncontrollably, but in either case, he had been going down hard, and not at any aerodrome.
Perhaps so, but Minard told him that whoever the opponent might have been, he had at least made it back behind his own lines and, therefore, the victory could only be rated as “possible” and not “certain.” C’est la vie.
The champagne continued to flow freely and the pilots spent the night in boozy reverie. No one was concerned about the following morning. It had already started to rain with some sleet mixed in. Flying was unlikely.
Corporal-Pilot Bullard had been, as his commander pronounced, extremely lucky, both to have had some success in the air, and to make it back alive. This would have been in line with his father’s predictions for his “seventh child,” his “lucky child.” There had been some mystical attachment to the number seven in his father’s Haitian tradition, along with ever-present hope that at least one of his ten children would escape the desperate poverty and prejudice of his own post-slavery experiences in the rural South of his day.
Bullard had, indeed, been fortunate to break free of the bleak future that faced him as a black youngster in a racist Georgia early in the twentieth century. Lucky, also, to have survived five years of wandering, living from hand to mouth, until stowing aboard a freighter bound for Europe in 1912. Lucky to have found success in the boxing rings of England and France; the company of good friends and benefactors; and, finally, the racial freedom he had craved for so long.
He even found favor with the gods of war, whom he had tempted mightily when he volunteered for the French Foreign Legion after the Great War exploded across the landscape of Europe. While thousands died around him, the bombs and bullets did not kill him; wound him, yes, and grievously so, but even these afflictions led him to greater opportunity— in the skies above the trenches he had so recently occupied. Improbably, fortuitously and upon a bet, Lady Luck had literally lifted him up, until, there he was, the very first black man to grasp the control stick and trigger pulls of a fighter plane. Yes, Bullard was certain he had made history that November day, for himself and for his race, and no one would be able to convince him otherwise. It brought a smile to his face and yet another offer of champagne.
What he did not know then—what he couldn’t possibly know—was that Lady Luck was not done with him—not by a long shot. Destiny had Eugene Bullard in its tightfisted grip and it was going to take him for one hell of a ride.
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