Morlock, who attained the rank of technical sergeant in the Army, served with the 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the 101st Airborne Division. Excellent in electronics, he was a radioman who kept the radios in good condition. Originally from Pettibone, he and his wife, Eldora, raised their family at Beulah.

“Our father never talked much about World War II,” said Kathy Thiel of Minot. But when the 50th anniversary of the war took place, she said he started talking more about the war.

“Both my brothers (Bryan Morlock and Bruce Morlock), of course, knew what unit he was in the war. They did a lot of research about where Dad’s unit was and what they were involved in including Omaha Beach,” Kathy said.

Bruce said his research actually started in the 1970s when he was a student at Minot State University taking a history course. He brought home the book, “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan, that was part of the class.

Submitted Photo This is the windmill in Eerde, The Netherlands. Gustav Morlock’s Army uniform is displayed in the Geronimo museum located on the ground floor of the windmill.

“It was lying on the coffee table and Dad picked it up, started thumbing through it and he turned to me and said, ‘Are you reading this?’ Bruce told him yes, he was reading it. “And he said, ‘I was in this.'”

Bruce had not known his father was in Operation Market Garden, a military operation fought in The Netherlands from Sept. 17-25, 1944. The book and film, “A Bridge Too Far” were based on the operation.

“That really was the beginning of me trying to find out just where he had been and what he had done,” Bruce said.

Kathy said her brothers came up with the idea to go to Europe to visit the places where their father served during the war.

“They did the research, they planned the trip where we were going to go and what we were going to see,” she said.

Submitted Photo World War II veteran Gustav Morlock’s U.S. Army uniform including cap, boots, a prayer book and a photograph are shown displayed in the Geronimo museum in Eerde, The Netherlands, in September 2019.

“Our father talked about this for many years that he wanted to go back but he never did. My mother’s health being so bad he took care of her. My brother and I had said we need to do this. Finally I said, ‘It’s time to go,’ “ Bruce said.

He laid out the trip and they went to Europe this past June – Bryan Morlock and his wife, Karen, of Fergus Falls, Minn., Bruce Morlock and his wife, Jaclyn, of Grand Forks, and Kathy Thiel and her husband, Terry, of Minot. The siblings’ sister, Lynn Morlock of, Kalispell, Mont., did not go on the trip.

Arriving in Europe, one of the sites the group was scheduled to see was a museum where the 101st Airborne had been involved. “That’s what my dad was in. He was in the 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion,” Bruce said.

“It was Father’s Day, a Sunday, and we were headed to Nijmegen to go to a museum and then later on to see a windmill in the small town of Eerde,” Bruce said.

They thought their father had been in that area during the war and a main focus of their trip was to verify if he was at that village.

Submitted Photo Gustav Morlock is shown in his Army uniform in this mid-1945 photograph.

Realizing the museum didn’t open until noon, Bruce reversed their plans. “I said we’ll swing by the windmill in Eerde and then go to the museum in Nijmegen,” Bruce said. “We went into the small town of Eerde, we asked for directions and go to the windmill. There’s three guys there getting the windmill going and we find out it’s open to be toured. It’s only open on Sundays and Thursdays and we happened to be there on a Sunday on Father’s Day.

“Then we find out they have a museum in the bottom of this windmill dedicated to the 101st Airborne Division. We show the curator of the museum (Erwin Janssen) the picture of our dad and tell him he served in the 907th. The guy was very excited and very interested, and proceeded to tell us everything about the 907th – where they had been and what they had done to support the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment,” Bruce said.

The U.S. visitors spent five to six hours at the windmill. “We never did get to the other museum,” Bruce said.

The curator took them to various places of significance at Eerde during the war

The Geronimo museum on the ground floor of the St. Antoniusmolen (windmill) had one room designated for the 101st Airborne. They were working on building a second room to expand the museum.

“He (the curator) was so interested in Dad and so excited to meet us because in his museum was all the parachute guys. He didn’t have anything from the 907th who had served right in the town,” Bruce said.

Starting from arriving in a town and visiting a windmill museum where they thought their father had served, the family members officially discovered their father had served there and helped liberate the village 75 years ago.

During the trip they also visited other sites of military operations their father had served in during the war including Bastogne, Belgium, site of the Battle of the Bulge, and Omaha Beach, site of the Normandy D-Day landing, at Normandy, France. He arrived at the latter a day later in 1944.

“When we get back home Bruce says, ‘We should offer Dad’s uniform for the museum,’ “ Kathy said. The uniform was housed in the Mercer County Historical Society Museum in Beulah since their father died eight years ago.

Bruce contacted the curator at the Eerde museum to see if he would be interested in the uniform. Janssen, the curator, said absolutely he would be interested.

“We arranged a deal with the Mercer County Historical Society to have the uniform go to the museum in The Netherlands on loan,” Bruce said. He had the uniform cleaned at a Grand Forks cleaner recommended by some of his military contacts.

Bryan ordered new awards – ribbons including their father’s Bronze Star and the 101st Airborne unit citation – to go along with the uniform.

Then Bruce told the others he was not going to ship the uniform anywhere. “I’m going to deliver it,” he said.

Bruce and Jaclyn Morlock, Bryan Morlock, Kathy and Terry Thiel, and this time also their sister Lynn Morlock and her partner Vince Wright of Kalispell, Mont., went to The Netherlands to deliver the uniform to the museum in Eerde. Bryan’s wife was unable to go on this trip. Cory Morlock, Bryan and Karen Morlock’s son who lives Germany, joined them.

“We timed this to be on Sept. 17, which was the 75th anniversary of when the parachute landing took place 75 years ago. “That’s when they were opening the other room in the museum. We delivered the uniform on the 15th to give them two days before the big ceremony,” Bruce said.

On Sunday, Sept. 15, the Morlock family members went into the museum’s new room. There a mannequin was waiting and they were told by museum people they could dress the mannequin. They had thought they would deliver the uniform and the museum people would get everything ready.

“They told us to take all the time we would need,” Bruce said.

Kathy said it was “very emotional” to place their father’s uniform on the mannequin. Gustav Morlock’s boots also are part of the display.

“Also, the Mercer County Museum had found a prayer book in the jacket that we didn’t even know about – a serviceman’s prayer book that had my dad’s name, his father’s name and his pastor’s name. We had that too so that’s now on display – the uniform, the boots and the prayer book,” he said.

“And a picture of Dad,” Kathy added.

The family stayed for events planned in Eerde on Tuesday, Sept. 17 – a reenactment parachute jump of 75 years ago and the evening ceremony including the U.S. ambassador to The Netherlands.

“Even though Operation Market Garden was a failure, this little village of Eerde was liberated as a result of this,” Kathy said.

Operation Market Garden, considered a daring airborne operation, failed to achieve all of its objectives – to secure the key bridge at Arnhem in The Netherlands that would have allowed the Allies to cross the Rhine and shorten the war but it was not a total failure because it led to the liberation of a large part of The Netherlands.

Kathy said the Eerde museum is open only on Sundays and Thursday. “If we would have shown up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, none of this would have happened. It was like all the stars came together,” she said.

“All I knew was there was a windmill that had played an important part in the battle in the area where Dad had served. That’s all I knew,” Bruce said. “I knew where the windmill was so I thought we’ll go there, we’ll look at it, we’ll touch it and we’ll say, ‘Dad was around here somewhere.’ “

“It truly is an amazing story,” he added.

(Video by Cory Morlock)

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