Royal Navy Memorial

There is a memorial plaque by Paks Margareta to the officers and seamen of the British Royal Navy who served during the Estonian War of Independence. The intervention of the Royal Navy played an important role during the War of Independence from 1918 to 1920 and may even have tipped the balance in favor of Estonia (and Latvia), by preventing the Soviet navy from intervening.

Memorial plaque to the British Royal Navy

In November 1918 the Royal Navy's sixth light cruiser squadron sailed into the Baltic Sea under the command of Rear-Admiral Edwin Alexander-Sinclair. The squadron bombed Soviet positions near Narva and later captured two Soviet destroyers which they donated to the Estonian navy.

Alexander-Sinclair was replaced by Rear-Admiral Sir Walter Cowan in January 1919. In spite of having a smaller force at his disposal Cowan attacked the Soviet naval base in Kronstadt and sank the most important Soviet ships, crippling the Soviet navy in the Baltic Sea.