Monument to Latvian Army Lieutenant Alfreds Klestrovs, battle site of the armoured train "Kalpaks"
Battle site
Lieutenant Commander of the Armoured Train Lieutenant Alfred Klestrov , born 8 March 1897 in Liepaja. Graduated from Liepāja City School, then from the surveyors' school in Riga.
Conscripted into the Russian Army during World War I, graduated from the Battalion School in Moscow. Served on the Romanian front, fought in Ukraine. When Ukraine was occupied by German troops, he returned to Riga.
The Order was awarded in 1922
Conscripted into the Latvian Army in the spring of 1919, served in the additional battalion of the 3rd Latgale Division. In October 1919 he was assigned to the armoured train "Kalpaks" as a commander.
On 4 November 1919, when the Germans attacked Liepāja, the commander of the armoured train "Kalpaks", Lieutenant Alfred Klyestrov, under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, counter-attacked and got behind enemy lines with the armoured train. Unable to open cannon fire, he led his team in a bayonet fight and dispersed the enemy, thus contributing to the withdrawal of the Bermontese attack, but he himself fell in this battle to a bullet from German soldiers who had entrenched themselves at home and remained behind the Latvian army soldiers.
In 1935, a memorial plaque was erected at the place of death of Lieutenant Alfred Klestrovs, commander of the armoured train "Kalpaks", at the junction of the Liepāja railway and Liepāja-Grobiņa highway.
Used sources and references:
LKOK no.3/1423 : Klēstrovs, Alfred Viktors (www.lkok.com/detail1.asp?ID=%27755%27)
Armored train Armored train No. 5 - History (vesture.eu)
https://vesture.eu/index.php/Bruņotais_vilciens_Nr5
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