William J. Pribyl was born in September 1923 in Baltimore, Maryland. He served in the Army as the Technical Executive Officer of the 961st Quartermaster Petroleum Products Laboratory. Pribyl grew up during the Great Depression, the son of a baker who was a Soviet Ukrainian immigrant. With his parents and four siblings, he lived in an extended family household. He drove the bakery's delivery truck from the time he was 16 in and around poor neighborhoods, and recognized that his family had what they needed, which was more than most. He went to parochial schools through the eighth grade level, after which he attended a business college. Instead of going into business, he went to a polytechnic school to study engineering. After graduating in 1943, Pribyl had an opportunity to go Johns Hopkins University [Annotator's Note: in Baltimore, Maryland], alongside students in the ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program]. There, he took a course in gas and fuel analysis that would later prove important in his assignment in the military. Pribyl was drafted in 1944, and went through basic training at Fort George G. Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George Meade, Maryland]. He then interviewed and was accepted into Officer Candidate School. He graduated in 1944, at 21 years of age, as a Second Lieutenant. Pribyl was assigned to the 961st Quartermaster Petroleum Products Laboratory at Fort Lee [Annotator's Note: in Prince George County, Virginia]. His unit was sent to Fort Totten, Long Island [Annotator's Note: Long Island, New York], for overseas deployment, with their destination in sealed orders that were not opened until they passed the coastline of the United States. He was headed for the China-Burma-India Theater. Going back to 1941, Pribyl said he was listening to news on the radio when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Then he heard President Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] statement that we were "involved in the conflict of the world war." At the time, he wanted to go into the service, but he was still in school, and wanted to finish his education.

During his courses at Johns Hopkins University [Annotator's Note: in Baltimore, Maryland], William J. Pribyl worked in a lab conducting analysis on various petroleum products in accordance with the regulations set forth in the Army Standard Technical Mannual. So he knew all of the procedures involved in the petroleum industry. His was a very highly trained technical unit [Annotator's Note: 961st Quartermaster Petroleum Products Laboratory], with a captain, who had been an executive in the petroleum industry in charge, and Pribyl, who was promoted to first lieutenant in the theater, second in command. There were 12 technical people in the unit, all staff sergeants who had been working in the oilfield industry in civilian life. When they opened their sealed orders and learned that they were going to the CBI [Annotator's Note: China-Burma-India Theater], it was a surprise, and Pribyl said he wasn't aware of the military aspects of what was going on in that part of the war. Their trip overseas began at Fort Totten [Annotator's Note: Long Island, New York] and stopped long enough in Cairo [Annotator's Note: Cairo, Egypt] for Pribyl to visit the Pyramids, then ended up in Abadan, Iran. There they were "kicked off the plane because of priority," but there was a refinery in Iran, and their group had an opportunity to do some work on the petroleum products going to the Russian front. Pribyl has since received a medal from the Soviet government for this work. Once again underway, the unit flew to Chittagong [Annotator's Note: Chattogram, Bangladesh] and their assignment. His captain gave him orders to set up the facility, and to start testing products coming in through an underwater line from the Bay of Bengal. After about a month, Pribyl was sent with half of his unit to the Tinsukia Tank Farm in the Assam Valley [Annotator's Note: Assam, India] to set up and operate another testing facility. Once their product was approved, it was sent by pipeline as far as Chongqing, China where the Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: the First American Volunteer Group of the Republic of China Air Force, composed of American military pilots] were based. The Japanese had isolated China and occupied Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar], and the only way to get supplies into the area was by flying them "over the hump" [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China] which was expensive and dangerous. Project Eight was the authority that built the Ledo Road and the pipeline that supplied the Allied Forces' air bases in India, in China, and Burma with gasoline.

According to William J. Pribyl, the pipeline that pumped petroleum to China made it to Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyina, Burma; now Myitkyina, Myanmar] before the road [Annotator's Note: the Ledo Road] did and was operational and sending fuel as far as incrementally possible while it was being constructed. At the end of the line, the flow was cut-off using gate valves. The two projects were started in December 1943 at Digboi in the Assam Valley [Annotator's Note: Assam, India], and at that time there were no engineer petroleum distribution [Annotator's Note: also referred to as EPD] companies in the theater. What was in place was a "general support Negro company that started to build the pipeline." Once begun, the EPD companies started coming and eventually there were 15 EPD companies, two aviation companies, and a variety of petroleum labs that were involved in the pipeline undertaking. It was completed in January 1945 when the last pipes were coupled near the Burma border, and oil started pumping all the way to Kunming, Chia. As the Chinese dignitaries watched the gasoline coming through, they commented that the pipeline brought them petroleum in "Technicolor" because the aviation gasoline was green, there was white gasoline for lanterns and "fuel", and automotive gasoline was red. The pipeline transported fuel from then until the war was over. At that point, Pribyl was directed to shut his lab down, pack the equipment, and return it to the United States. The captain of the 1382nd EPD Company [Annotator's Note: 1382nd Engineer Petroleum Distribution Company], still operating in the theater, was short an officer, and requested that Pribyl be transferred from his deactivated unit [Annotator's Note: 961st Quartermaster Petroleum Products Laboratory] to the 1382nd to inventory a 300 mile stretch of the pipeline. He advised Pribyl that when he got back, there would be no troops, no aircraft, and no vehicles in the Assam Valley, and he would have to find his own way back to Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India]. Moreover, he had to be there by 3 May 1946, or he would "miss the boat." The team went from pump station to pump station, inventoried the pipe, the pumps and the tank farm, and turned the data over to a representative of the Indian government. It was to be sold as scrap, with the idea to "never again be used as a military pipeline."

Describing an average day, William J. Pribyl explains that he was quartered in tents at a campsite in Tinsukia [Annotator's Note: Tinsukia, India]. He had an office at a nearby laboratory where he received orders regarding tanks that needed to be tested, and he would send technicians out to collect samples and perform analyses. Pribyl would review their reports and send them up the chain of command. He mentions that there were octane engines at both Chittagong [Annotator's Note: Chittagong, Bangladesh] and Tinsukia, that tested the aviation gas, and he goes on to describe the various tests they performed on the different products. The work was not free of danger. At one point, the pipeline was bombed at the border of Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar] and China, and there was also a lot of sabotage. There had to be "Pipeline Walkers" to go along the length of the installation looking for leaks. Living conditions in the area was like "going back in time about 200 years." There were no modern means of communication, and the water systems were no good at all. Pribyl never ate at a local restaurant because of the unsanitary conditions. The native people were poor, and not always cooperative. He says that the least cooperative were the Indians, the Burmese were a little better, and the Chinese would do whatever had to be done. Pribyl said the engineers used a lot of local labor, alongside the military labor. The Indians were doing some of the welding, and had quite a few accidents, until the Americans established a welding school in Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India], and once trained, the Indian welders were very good. Still, some lives were lost during the pipeline's construction. And in northern Burma, malaria was a big factor. Despite the communications difficulties, Pribyl was able to keep up contact with his family through incoming and outgoing letters, and V-mail [Annotator's Note: Victory Mail; postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail] at holidays. He said there were a lot of signal corps men in the area stringing copper wire and setting up basic navigational stations along the route. Pribyl never came into combat contact with the Japanese. The installation was the longest military pipeline ever built, and was strategically important because it fed the 70 airbases in India and the 73 airbases in China, bringing needed fuel to the B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] for as long as the pipeline was in operation.

After William J. Pribyl inventoried the pipeline, it was dismantled and cut up for scrap, under the Army's conditions that it no longer be used as a military pipeline. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Pribyl if the pipeline might have proved useful to the civilian population after the war.] Pribyl explains that India had one refinery, in Calcutta, and there were very few automobiles, so it probably would not have been useful at that time. When the war ended, Pribyl says he was "glad that things were over." Pribyl describes the specifications of the 2600 mile long pipe construction and its transfer capacities. The materials that were moved by trucks, aircraft, and various land methods, were submerged in riverbeds, suspended from cables across gorges, and strung up and down steep mountainsides. Its lowest elevation was 300 feet, in India; the highest elevation was 9,200 feet in China. The pipeline builders cut armor plate from burned-out Japanese tanks, cannibalized trucks, and took cable off bombed bridges to use in their work. He describes techniques used in the construction, and described the wide range of difficulties encountered, including monsoon rains, insects, leeches, malaria, dysentery and typhus. Over 5,000 men worked on the project for more than a million man-days.

William J. Pribyl left Calcutta {Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India] on 3 May 1946 on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] the Marine Adder [Annotator's Note: SS Marine Adder]. The ship stopped at Singapore for fuel and picked up Chinese cadets in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China] who were going to the United States for aircraft training. The ship crossed the Pacific and landed at the Army Pier in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] on 30 May 1946. It was Memorial Day, and his belongings weren't unloaded until the following day. He left by train for Fort Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland], and was able to go home on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], where he surprised his family. When he returned to duty, he was discharged, and joined the National Guard. He stayed with them for seven years, but when the Korean War broke out, Pribyl had "had enough" and resigned his commission. He believes it is important for younger generations to know the story of World War 2; a war he said was "for our freedom and for our liberty." He thinks it should still be taught in schools, and that Americans have institutions like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana], because the history of our country has to be preserved. He notes that he had visited the museum at Warner Robins Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: Warner Robins, Georgia], dedicated to "The Hump" [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China] pilots and the Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: the First American Volunteer Group of the Republic of China Air Force composed of American airmen and ground crew], and a CBIVA [Annotator's Notes: the China-Burma-India Veterans Association] museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His message to future viewers of his interview is that we should do everything possible to protect the American way of life.