The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

February 15, 2013

Aubrey Stewart Project is scheduled to be presented at Tamarack Saturday

Tamarack will host a presentation of the Aubrey Stewart Project Saturday at 1 p.m.

Admission is free.

A native of Piedmont, Stewart’s unit was an African-American unit of the then-racially segregated U.S. Army during the World War II.  

Stewart and his fellow soldiers of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion were separated from their unit and captured by the German SS in Wereth, Belgium, shortly after the Battle of the Bulge.

Disconnected from their unit, Stewart and 10 others stopped at a Wereth farmhouse and were taken in by the family of Mathias Langer, a sympathizer to the Allies. They were hidden in a barn with two deserting German soldiers and Mathias’ teenage son, also in hiding to keep from being conscripted by the Nazis.

A neighbor informed a nearby German unit. Rather than jeopardize Langer’s family, the 11 surrendered, and the next day they were found hideously murdered in a snow-covered field behind Mathias’ farmhouse.

More questions than answers remain.

The Aubrey Stewart Project was founded by Piedmont natives TJ Coleman and Kip Price in an effort to keep his memory alive and to try to answer some of those questions.

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