Reasons for awarding the award to Commander of the Armoured Train A.Klestrov
After successfully repelling an enemy attack, the commander of the armed train A.Klestrov falls and Colonel Danker issued the grounds for the award
"In November 1919, Lieutenant Commander of the armed train "KOLPAKS", Lieutenant KĻESTROV, skillfully led the train against the Germans.
The Germans were close to Liepaja and kept up a steady fire on the station and railway line where the "KOLPAKS" was based. On November 3, after midday, the Germans came on the attack on the forts, launching their general assault on Liepaja. The armoured train under the skilful leadership of Lieutenant Commander KLESTROV, despite the enemy's incessant artillery and machine-gun fire, went on the counter-attack. When the train had reached the enemy's chains so that it was impossible to operate the cannon, Oberleutnant KLESTROV and his command, supported by machine-gun fire from the train, went to meet the enemy in a bayonet fight, which the enemy could not withstand and began to retreat. At the successful pursuit of the enemy, Ober-Lieutenant KLESTROV fell from an enemy bullet."
Klestrov was awarded the Third Class of the Order of the Order of the Knights of the Laplace in 1922.
1935. g. A memorial plaque was erected at the place of K.'s death at the junction of Liepāja railway and Liepāja-Grobiņa highway.
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Monument to Latvian Army Lieutenant Alfreds Klestrovs, battle site of the armoured train "Kalpaks"
Lieutenant Commander of the Armoured Train Lieutenant Alfred Klestrov , born 8 March 1897 in Liepaja. Graduated from Liepāja City School, then from the surveyors' school in Riga.
Conscripted into the Russian Army during World War I, graduated from the Battalion School in Moscow. Served on the Romanian front, fought in Ukraine. When Ukraine was occupied by German troops, he returned to Riga.
The Order was awarded in 1922
Conscripted into the Latvian Army in the spring of 1919, served in the additional battalion of the 3rd Latgale Division. In October 1919 he was assigned to the armoured train "Kalpaks" as a commander.
On 4 November 1919, when the Germans attacked Liepāja, the commander of the armoured train "Kalpaks", Lieutenant Alfred Klyestrov, under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, counter-attacked and got behind enemy lines with the armoured train. Unable to open cannon fire, he led his team in a bayonet fight and dispersed the enemy, thus contributing to the withdrawal of the Bermontese attack, but he himself fell in this battle to a bullet from German soldiers who had entrenched themselves at home and remained behind the Latvian army soldiers.
In 1935, a memorial plaque was erected at the place of death of Lieutenant Alfred Klestrovs, commander of the armoured train "Kalpaks", at the junction of the Liepāja railway and Liepāja-Grobiņa highway.
