America's First Black Aviator

Ask anyone to identify America's first black aviators, and they would undoubtedly cite the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, including Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr., who went on to become the first African American Air Force General.

But, as I just found out after reading Charles Glass' Americans in Paris, a fascinating account of Americans caught in Paris after the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the honor of the first black aviator goes to Eugene Jacques Bullard. Raised in Columbus, Ga., he moved to Europe to escape prejudice before the start of World War I.

Bullard joined the French Foreign Legion when World War I broke out, served in the French Army's 170th Infantry Regiment, was wounded twice at the battle of Verdun, and was awarded France's highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre.

While recuperating in Paris in 1916, Bullard took a bet from a fellow American that he could not get into the fledging French Air Force. He won the bet, and after training, in August 1917, started flying patrols in a Spad biplane through the end of the war on Nov. 11, according to Narayan Sengupta in an excerpt from his book American Eagles, a history of American aviators in World War I.

After the war, Bullard settled in Paris, opened a jazz club and in the 1930s was recruited by French intelligence to spy on Germans who frequented the club. In June 1940, as the Germans neared Paris, the 45-year-old Ballard hiked to the edge of the city to join his old French ground unit, the 170th Infantry Regiment, to help repel the German advance.

In 1954, French President Charles de Gaulle honored Ballard's service by asking him, along with two French veterans, to light the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He died in 1961, with his service all but forgotten.

As we get ready to honor on Memorial Day all Americans who have answered the call to defend liberty, it's good to remember the motto Ballard painted on his biplane: "All Blood Runs Red."