Death of Latvian merchant ships during the evacuation of Tallinn at the beginning of the Second World War

Once the entire border of the Gulf of Finland in Estonia was once a closed area, vigilantly monitored by Soviet border guards. Remains of border guard buildings are still clearly visible in the forest, and a metal rocket mule about 3-4 m long has been installed as a sightseeing object in Juminda Cape. Apparently, with such visual fake copies of the missiles, the USSR tried to deceive the enemy spying planes, which were equipped with cameras during the Cold War and tried to learn the secrets of the coast defense. Every 20 km along the coast there were border guard posts, where about 30 border guards lived. At night, they had to patrol along the coast in full armor and not everyone was able to walk the mandatory 15-20km to the area of the neighboring post and back. For many, such service and night patrolling was too difficult and they could not stand it, so they physically weakened the weakest from such service… This is said by a man who once served here and guarded the border.

A thorough granite memorial stone has been erected on the very northern promontory of the Juminda Peninsula, marking the tragic events that took place here at the beginning of the Second World War. With the retreat, the Soviet army had to carry out a major naval operation - evacuating people and equipment from the already besieged Tallinn with 190 ships that could not be left to the rapidly attacking German army. The Germans planned this retreat and, together with the Finns, set up large minefields on the way, prepared bombers for flights in the already occupied part of Estonia, and placed a 150mm shore artillery battery for firing ships from the shore on the Juminda Peninsula. German speedboats and Finnish torpedo boats on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland were also prepared for the attack.

The evacuation of the ships began on August 27, 1941 in rather bad weather. Soviet ships bound for Tallinn in the direction of Kronstadt were attacked by German and Finnish forces from the air and sea, fired from the shore by artillery. Suffering heavy losses, the convoy of ships stopped at night due to the dangers of minefields. On the second morning, the ships resumed their movements and the attacks resumed. Those warships with more powerful engines tried to get under cover from the Kronstadt coastal batteries as soon as possible, and in fact a relatively small number of patrol vessels remained to guard the relatively slow convoy of merchant ships. Some maritime experts believe that many warships simply fled to save their skins, leaving the slowest merchant ships to their fate.

Within two days, opposite the Juminda Peninsula, 34 ships were sunk and disappeared, both trade and war. Among them, many who until recently went to sea with the flag of independent Estonia or Latvia on the mast. The former ships of the Latvian merchant navy Everita, Kalpaks, Ausma, Atis Kronvaldis, Kalpaks, Skrunda have found an eternal resting place here. The mighty icebreaker Krišjānis Valdemārs is still still resting here at a depth of 100m, in darkness and silence. The location of the wreck is now well known and known. About 12,400 people died in the waters of the Gulf of Finland during the two-day evacuation of the Tallinn Sea. There are historians who believe that this is one of the greatest tragedies that occurred at sea during World War II. It is now known that around 60,000 sea mines were deployed in the waters of the Gulf of Finland during World War II.

The name of Virsaitis, the flagship of the Latvian pre-war Navy, also appears on a separate stone slab among other ship names. It sank off the coast of Finland as part of the Hanko evacuation operation, which took place in late November and early December 1941. The ship apparently collided with a mine and sank. The exact location of its death is now known, more than a year after the Juminda tragedy.