HomeMy WebLinkAboutWillie Ulich, Brazos Valley HeroesBy Bill YoungKm
Special to The Eagle
Willie Ulich of Lyons in Burleson County, now almost
87, is considered to be blind because of macular
degeneration. But he has seen a lot in his lifetime. A life
that will end where it began.
"I was born in 1920 on the place we live now. Same
place, just a newer home. When I retired about 20
years ago as the head of the Agricultural Engineering
Department at Texas Tech, like an old elephant, I came
back to Lyons."
Ulich attended grade school in Lyons and graduated
from Somerville High in 1939. He married his classmate
and neighbor Esther Shoppe and started college at
A&M.
"I had won a national 4-H award, and as a result
'` I had received a $300 scholarship. With that, $25 in
savings. and a mobile home I built on our farm, Esther
and I headed to A&M. I had committed myself to A&M
;,, several years before, but it might have been because it
€ was the only college I knew.
"The Boyd family had a farm behind the Campus
Theatre and their home had burned down, so Esther ands
'` I were able to put our homemade mobile home there.
': We were about halfway between Wellborn Road and
College Avenue. I majored in agricultural engineering,
as my scholarship was in agriculture.
"When the war broke out, my class -the class of
'43 -was put on the fast track to graduation, which
we did in January 1943. We walked one day and were
reporting to San Antonio the next. I was sent to Camp
Lee, Virginia, where I completed officer training school
and received my commission as a second lieutenant.
"I was assigned to a food refrigeration company. But
like the good Aggie I was, I was afraid I would spend the
war in a warehouse. So when the Army posted a notice
of their need for pilots, I volunteered for the Army Air
Corps and I was soon off to flight school.
"I processed through various phases of flight school
to Lafayette, Louisiana. There I ran into an Aggie
classmate, George Rice. The Air Corps had a rule that if
you became airsick, they would wash you out of flight
school. The first time up, George and I both became
airsick, but our instructor didn't wash us out.
"We recovered and finished the training. After
we finished, we asked the instructor why he hadn't
washed us out. He said, `I thought all you Aggies were
out carousing and drinking each night, getting drunk. I
thought you were just hung over.' We hadn't been; we
were just airsick. That may be when the reputation of
theirAggie brethren saved their flying career.
"I really had great success in flight school. Some
of my classmates thought Iwas ahot-shot pilot, but I
had some very good instructors. I ended up in B-24s in
Courtland, Alabama. During my B-24 training I flew over
with his team plowing. I flew over him hoping he would
recognize who was flying. I decided to drop a message
in a plastic bottle we had on board and made another
pass to drop it. I got a letter from him chastising me
because I almost made his team run off on him.
"I was sent to Miami Beach, where I helped ferry
planes to India. After we flew a plane there, we had to
get back on our own. I eventually was assigned to the
China-Burma-India Command. Our primary duty was
flying converted B-24s, filled with gasoline, to China.
Flying to China, you flew over the Himalayas. There
were three big peaks, and the goal was to fly between
them. The problem was that the Japanese would sneak
in and place IFF signal devices that, if you were in
clouds while flying through, would cause you to fly into
the mountains. Also, we were flying gasoline in barrels
and static electricity was a problem. The Indians made ~.
barrels that often leaked, and if they did, you could be in !a
trouble. We had several planes just blowup.
"Dn one trip back to India; our destination was socked
in. We were instructed to head out to sea, put the plane
on auto and bail out. The only problem was that our
crew chief had left his chute and didn't have one. We
found a British fighter strip on our map and headed for
it. To our surprise, when the cover broke, there was 9
a lighted air strip. Instead of flying a landing pattern,
we flew straight in. When we landed there was no one
around. We slept under the plane and the next day we
woke up and we saw these large balloons attached to
cables in the air. It was a trap for Japanese pilots. We
had flown in and landed the only way you could on that '"
air strip - in the dark.
"On another trip we flew out of clouds over the ,"
Himalayas and there on our left wing was a Japanese
Zero. We flew along for a few minutes looking at each
other. We had no way to attack him except with our .45
pistols. I waved at him; he waved back. We flew into i :.
another cloud... and when we broke out, he was gone. !'
I guess he was on reconnaissance and had no way to
attack us.
When the war ended, Ulich had flown 57 missions
but was requested to fly personnel out so they could go ;}
home. He finally was able to fly home in March 1946 to ":
San Antonio, where his entry into the military began.
"After I returned home, I enrolled at A&M on my
master plan and went to work in the Ag Engineering
Department. In 1951 I attended Harvard and received
my Ph.D. and then returned to A&M. In the late 1950's
Texas Tech asked me to be the head of their Agricultural ''
Engineering Department, which I did until I retired'and
returned to Lyons.
"I'm glad I had my war experience, but I wouldn't
want to go through it again."
For more information, to make a contribution, or if !i
you know a World War 11 Veteran whose story needs to '!
be told, contact the BWM at www. veteransmemorial.
org or Bill Youngkin at (979) 260-7030.