Name Milan Uzelac | ||
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Died January 7, 1954, Petrinja, Croatia | ||
Milan Emil Uzelac (26 August 1867 – 7 January 1954) was soldier and military commander who was a leading figure in the air forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Independent State of Croatia.
Emil Uzelac was born in Komárom, then Austria-Hungary, on 26 August 1867. He was a Croat born into an Orthodox Christian family. He started in the compulsory Austro-Hungarian army in 1888.
In 1912 he was made commander of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops, which until then had been mostly a force of balloons. He modernized the force and was subsequently decorated with numerous imperial awards.
After World War I Uzelac joined the Royal Yugoslav Air Force on 28 November 1919, along with two other Austro-Hungarian generals, Rudolf Maister and Ante Plivelić. He retired on 19 August 1923.
In 1941 he was saved by deportation by the Independent State of Croatia, through his friend Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, who then held the position of Deutscher Kommandierender General in Agram. He was made an honorary general of the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia, within the Croatian Home Guard.
He died in Petrinja on 7 January 1954 and was buried in Zagreb's Mirogoj cemetery.