Erna Raid Renamed After Admiral Pitka
As rumored, the Erna Raid, the country's premier summertime military endurance event, will be renamed after a War of Independence hero and become an internationally more competitive event, held in a different spot in Estonia each year.
The first Admiral Pitka Recon Challenge will be held in Harju County from August 7-10 this year, the Defense League said in a statement.
The choice of Admiral Johan Pitka as namesake parallels the name selection of the Utria Challenge, the wintertime counterpart of Erna.
Pitka was the founder of the Defense League, the chief architect of the armored train units that essentially won the 1918-1920 war for the Estonians against both the Red forces and the Germans. He later founded the Navy and commanded the famous amphibious landing on the north coast, in Utria, in 1919.
Besides being viewed as favoring the home team, Erna Raid was also a perennial target of Russia, who took issue with the fact that it was named after the Erna squad, a special forces team operating deep behind Soviet lines in World War II indirectly under the aegis of Nazi Germany.