by Phil Keith
The incredible story of the first African American military pilot, who went on to become a Paris nightclub impresario, a spy in the French Resistance and an American civil rights pioneer
Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of eleven to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African American fighter pilot in history.
After the war, Bullard returned to Paris a celebrated hero. But little did he know that the dramatic, globe-spanning arc of his life had just begun.
All Blood Runs Red is the inspiring untold story of an American hero, a thought-provoking chronicle of the twentieth century and a portrait of a man who came from nothing and by his own courage, determination, gumption, intelligence and luck forged a legendary life.
Praise for All Blood Runs Red
“An incredible, meticulously researched, star-studded tale of the grandson of a slave, who broke nearly every barrier he encountered, becoming history’s first African American fighter pilot, a storied boxer, a member of Parisian high society in the Jazz Age, a character in a Hemingway novel, a World War II spy, and a friend to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Louis Armstrong. All Blood Runs Red is a true ‘moveable feast’ that will forever change the way you see twentieth-century history.”
—Kristin Harmel, international bestselling author of The Winemaker’s Wife and The Room on Rue Amélie
“Phil Keith and Tom Clavin have resurrected the memory of a man who was larger than life; a man born to a former slave and a Native American mother in racially hostile Georgia who refused to play the hand he was dealt, and lived life on his own terms. All Blood Runs Red should be required reading for anyone who has ever dreamed big. A truly inspiring and uplifting story of courage and triumph, and an opus for an unsung hero.”
—Nelson DeMille
“An exultant trumpet song to the human spirit. My God, how I admire this man.”
—Robert Coram, author of Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
“Eugene Bullard lived enough for a dozen interesting men, and All Blood Runs Red tells his story in a captivating way that keeps the pages turning for the next chapter. Keith and Clavin bring us a well-crafted book about a truly admirable American.”
—Gregory A. Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Phil Keith is the author of six books, including Blackhorse Riders, which won the 2012 USA Best Book Award for Military History, was a finalist for the 2013 Colby Award and earned a 2013 silver medal from the Military Writers Society of America. He holds a degree in history from Harvard and is a former navy aviator. During three tours in Vietnam, he served with distinction and was awarded, among other decorations, the Purple Heart, Air Medal, Presidential Unit Citation and the Navy Commendation Medal.
Tom Clavin is the author of eighteen nonfiction books and has worked as a newspaper and website editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and reporter for the New York Times covering entertainment, sports and the environment. His latest book, Dodge City, became an immediate New York Times bestseller. Three previous books have also been New York Times bestsellers: The Heart of Everything That Is, The Last Stand of Fox Company and Halsey’s Typhoon.
Also by Phil Keith
Settling Up
America and the Great War
Stay the Rising Sun: The True Story of USS Lexington, Her Valiant Crew, and Changing the Course of WWII
Fire Base Illingworth: An Epic True Story of Remarkable Courage Against Staggering Odds
Missed Signals
Blackhorse Riders: A Desperate Last Stand, an Extraordinary Rescue Mission, and the Vietnam Battle America Forgot
Crimson Valor
Belladonna
Animus
Also by Tom Clavin
Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter
Valley Forge (with Bob Drury)
Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West
Being Ted Williams: Growing Up with a Baseball Idol (with Dick Enberg)
Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission (with Bob Drury)
Reckless: The Racehorse Who Became a Marine Corps Hero
The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend (with Bob Drury)
The DiMaggios: Three Brothers, Their Passion for Baseball, Their Pursuit of the American Dream
Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend (with Danny Peary)
Last Men Out: The True Story of America’s Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam (with Bob Drury)
One for the Ages: Jack Nicklaus and the 1986 Masters
Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero (with Danny Peary)
All Blood Runs Red
The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard—Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy
Phil Keith with Tom Clavin
To Lolly, “the Muse,” who has always believed; so, therefore, I write. And to Pierce, for whom I write, for his legacy and mine.
—P.K.
To Bob and AnnEllen Rosen
—T.C.
Contents
PROLOGUE
ACT I: THE RUNAWAY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
ACT II: THE FIGHTER
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
ACT III: THE PILOT
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
ACT IV: THE IMPRESARIO
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
ACT V: THE SPY
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
ACT VI: THE PIONEER
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
AUTHOR NOTE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
PHOTO INSERT
PROLOGUE
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 missio
ns. 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 flight 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.”1 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 h
is “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 postslavery 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.
* * *
1French slang for “a German soldier.” Term originated in the phrase “tête de caboche,” or “cabbage head.”
ACT I
The Runaway
