The Battle of Lebavere on 8 September 1941

On 8 September 1941, a battle took place in the Lebavere forest, ~8 km from Väike-Maarja, (present hamlet of Lääne-Viru County), between the Soviet 31st Detached Riflemen Battalion and the home guard (Omakaitse) of local habitants.

On the night of 8 September 1941, Eduard Ustav, a local forest-guard, saw that a 200-man group of Soviet soldiers had stopped in the Lebavere forest. These soldiers were part of the 31st Detached Riflemen Battalion which, after the end of the Battle of Tallinn on 28 August 1941, decided to independently break through to their own front. Ustav informed his superior Kaarel Kasesalu about the soldiers in the Lebavere forest, and Kasesalu, in turn, passed the message on by telephone to Ensign Tarmo Undla, Commander of the Home Guard unit in Väike-Maarja.

Ensign Undla gathered 36 or 38 men, armed with rifles and a machine gun. In the battle that began at the noon of 8 September, the Soviet soldiers were defeated and they lost 13 men in casualties and five men were wounded. Of the Home Guard, Kaarel Kasesalu fell, and Helmut Green was seriously wounded. In addition, Juhan Tamm, a forest worker working not far from the battle site, was fatally wounded by the gunfire of Soviet soldiers.

After the battle, the Home Guard got one machine gun, fourteen rifles, and hand grenades as spoils. On the first anniversary of the Battle of Lebavere, on 8 September 1942, a memorial stone was opened on the battlefield to commemorate Kaarel Kasesalu who fell in battle. In 1949, the memorial stone was dug into the ground to hide it from the Soviet authorities, and reopened on the 55th anniversary of the battle on 8 September 1996.