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On [[June 14]], [[1941]], when mass [[deportation]]s took place simultaneously in all three Baltic countries, about 10,000 Estonian civilians were deported to [[Siberia]] and other remote areas of the Soviet Union, where nearly half of them later perished. Of the 32,100 Estonian men who were forcibly relocated to Russia under the pretext of mobilisation into the Soviet army after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, nearly 40 percent died within the next year in the "[[labour battalion]]s" through hunger, cold and overworking. During the first Soviet occupation of 1940-41 about 500 Jews were deported to [[Siberia]].
When Estonia was proclaimed the [[Estonian SSR|Soviet Republic]], the crews of 42 Estonian ships in foreign waters refused to return to homeland (about 40% of Estonian pre-war fleet) These ships were brought into requisition by the British powers and were used in the Atlantic convoys. During the time of the war, approximately 1000 Estonian seamen served at the British militarised merchant marine, 200 of them as officers. A small number of Estonians served in the [[Royal Air Force]], in the [[British Army]] and in the [[US Army]], altogether no more than two hundred. <ref>[http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=383 Estonia in World War II] by Hannes Walter</ref>
==German Occupation==
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