Undva Military Base
On August 22, 1940, 594 ha of land was allocated for the construction of the Soviet military base No. 32 (Undva) on the Tagamõisa peninsula.
On 22 August 1940, land covering 594 ha on Tagamõisa Peninsula was granted for the construction of the 32nd Military Base of the Soviet Union in Undva.
This base and the 25th Artillery Battery were constructed on the site. The battery comprised four 130-mm B-13 fixed artillery guns, mounted on concrete barbettes. A total of 160 Soviet naval troops were stationed at the coastal defence battery in Undva, nine of them officers. The battery had a firing range of 24 kilometres.
In September 1941, during the German advance, the Red Army disassembled one of the artillery guns and moved it to the village of Rahuste on Sõrve Peninsula. It was placed on a wooden mount along with another gun from Kõruse. Locals, however, don't recall the battery being used in combat.
As in Kõruse, so coastal defence construction work continued on Cape Undva in the 1950s. A fixed battery mounting four 180-mm guns was built there. The modernisation of the artillery with missile technology brought improvement work to a close in 1956.
As the construction of a missile base began in Saaremaa in the 1960s, a radar station was built in Undva, tasked with monitoring the local airspace and passing on information. In addition, Undva was the site of a naval communication centre with its own radio-technical platoon.
In the 1990s, the radar station in Undva was used by the Estonian Border Guard as a border outpost. Due to the restructuring of the border guard, the outpost was closed on 1 January 2007.
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Related objects
Naval Communication Station in Undva
Undva is situated in the north-eastern part of Tagamõisa Peninsula in north-western Saaremaa. In August 1940, Soviet forces and locals recruited for construction began building the 32nd Military Base in Undva. After World War II, the Soviets built two 127-mm artillery batteries here, one near Suuriku Bank and the other on Cape Undva. The latter was later replaced with a more modern coastal defence battery, which preceded the construction of a radar station in the 1960s. The four concrete barbettes, concrete hangars and the remaining complex are in good condition.
