[1] Emil Uzelac was born in Komárom, in present-day Slovakia, then Austria-Hungary, on 26 August 1867 in a Serbian Orthodox family from Lika.

[2][1][3] He grew up in the vicinity of Karlovac where he finished gymnasium after which he enrolled at the Technical Military Academy of Civil Engineering and Crafts in Vienna from which he graduated on 18 August 1888.

[4] Following the end of the First World War, Uzelac lived for some time in Petrinja and was drafted into the Royal Yugoslav Army on 28 November 1919, along with two other Austro-Hungarian generals, Rudolf Maister and Ante Plivelić.

He was appointed Chief of the newly created Department of Aviation in the Ministry of the Army and Navy, which was, in reality, the position of the Air Force's Commander-in-Chief.

Although Uzelac laid the foundations for a modern aviation by building it with the experience gained in Austro-Hungarian air force, he was forcibly retired on 19 August 1923 as "unneeded".

On 21 and 22 August 1942, on the occasion of his 75th birthday and the 30th anniversary of service, a ceremony attended by numerous German, Hungarian and Croatian pilots from World War I, was held in Zagreb.