Battle of Mosul

On July 15, 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Kārlis Aperāts, commander of the 32nd Grenadier Regiment of the 15th Armored (1st Latvian) SS Grenadier Division of the Latvian Legion, was ordered to abandon his positions on the banks of the Velikaja River and retreat to Zilupe. His regiment was also joined by separate units of the 33rd Regiment and the 1st Company of the 15th Division's Sapper Battalion. On the way, Aperāts' column, which consisted of about 540 Latvian soldiers, was also joined by about 200 soldiers of the German 159th Grenadier Regiment. Before reaching Zilupe, they had to engage in battles with the Bolsheviks. On July 16, Aperāts' battle group reached Mozuļi Manor, where there was an undamaged bridge over the river. However, the Bolsheviks were already in the forest on the other bank, who opened heavy fire to protect the bridge. Despite this, the Latvians initially managed to cross the bridge and even set up small fortifications in front of it. However, the enemy forces were too strong, and when the Russians committed 20 to 30 tanks, the Latvians had to retreat, although they managed to destroy eight Russian tanks. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik tanks, using caterpillar tracks, hindered and directly fired on the Latvian and German wounded soldiers. In addition, the Russians also attacked the rear of the battle group, which made the situation hopeless. It was later discovered that this small and poorly armed battle group had found itself between two Red Army divisions, which had a large number of tanks and artillery at their disposal. A small group of Latvian soldiers managed to swim across the Zilupe River and reach the German defense lines one by one. Major Vilis Häzner, who took over the command of the battle group after Aperāts was injured, in later years managed to identify about 60 survivors of the Battle of Mozuly.

The Aperāts battle group managed to delay the Russian attack for one day, allowing other German and Latvian units to successfully retreat. Lieutenant Colonel Aperāts was mortally wounded, his remains have not been found to this day. After his death, Aperāts was promoted to the rank of colonel and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Voldemārs Eglītis, a witness to the Battle of Mozuļi, told in an interview with "Latvijas Avīzes": "The colonel gave the order to leave him alone with a revolver on his chest and for us to go to the Latvian border. As we were moving away, we heard a shot, when Colonel Aperāts shot himself to avoid being captured. While swimming across the river, I was seriously injured by an exploding bullet in both legs and an arm. After swimming across the river, I met my schoolmate Pauli Laukas, who bandaged my wounds and did not leave me for the next few days."

Major Willis Hasner says that during the retreat, when the volley cannon fire came, “the men threw themselves into the ditches of the road. But the regiment commander (Aperāts), setting an example for everyone, continued to walk in the middle of the road with great calm, as if he were not bothered by the shells bursting all around him. And indeed, the entire unit got up again and went with the commander. It was a testament to the example!” Hasner recalls: “I had never experienced such a battle of destruction in this war. We were all beaten to shreds... The Russians were incalculable in numbers, they had dozens of tanks, entire batteries of mortars, anti-tank guns, and our weak armament was not worth a tenth of what the Russians had. In addition, they had a tenfold or even greater superiority in manpower. We fought desperately.”

Given that Russia refused to allow the creation of a memorial site at the Mozuļi Manor on its territory, it was created on the banks of the Zilupe on the Latvian side. The memorial site was opened in Krivanda in 1992, when, at the initiative of the Rēzekne branch of the Latvian Daugava Hawks, a white-painted reinforced concrete cross was installed. In 2003, an irregularly shaped memorial stone made of red granite was placed next to the cross on the left. Every year, memorial events for the fallen legionnaires are held at the monument.