The stone was installed to mark the battle's 80th anniversary this year. The Battle of the Aruküla bunker (Aruküla punkrilahing) was one of the longest battles fought by members of the Forest Brothers organization—who fought the Soviet occupation of Estonia. 

Despite the Forest Brothers being heavily outnumbered, the standoff lasted from morning until evening. All four of the Forest Brothers involved—Mihkel and Heino Juhkam, and Karl and Leonhard Moor—then managed to break out of the encirclement Soviet NKVD forces had laid for them under cover of darkness.

The four were later apprehended by occupying Soviet authorities, however, and were executed by firing squad at the Patarei Prison.

The site, around 20 kilometers south of Rakvere, was long forgotten, until a member of the volunteer Defense League (Kaitseliit), Tiit Vaide, started to try to locate it.

"I learned about it 30 years ago. For a while it was forgotten, but then people started looking for it again, and since I knew it was being searched for, I helped find it," Vaide told "Aktuaalne kaamera".

"We carried out excavations here and found traces of the battle, which allow us to reconstruct its course with great precision. This battle is special because, first of all, it was one of the longest engagements fought by the Forest Brothers. They fought from morning until evening and then managed to break through the encirclement after dark. It was also a victory for the Estonian Forest Brothers, as not a single one of them was killed in the battle. All of them escaped alive, while a considerable number of their opponents were sent to the 'other world,'" said Aart Nõmm, a board member of the Akadeemilise Sõjaajaloo Selts military history society.

"I am delighted this was undertaken, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped make it happen. I understand that it was not easy to find the place where my father was. It is a miracle that he managed to get away from here. I am extremely thankful to everyone who helped create this memorial stone; it will always be very dear to me," said Laine Kurves, daughter of one of the Forest Brothers. EKRE MP Anti Poolamets spoke at the unveiling ceremony.

In December 1944, Heino Juhkam and Leopold (Leo) Moor started building a forest bunker in the Porkuni forest district in present-day Lääne-Viru County, completing it in January 1945. The bunker had firing ports and, a little over a year later, in February 1946, was put to the test after three Soviet soldiers sent to nearby Aruküla disappeared, later to be found dead in a forest barn.

A local farmer was arrested and his testimony led Soviet forces to the bunker on March 11, 1946, when the four men were inside.. The first Soviet assault on the bunker started around 10 a.m. and was repelled by intense rifle and machine-gun fire, leading to the wounding of a Soviet lieutenant. Two further attacks later that day were also successfully repelled by the defenders, and the four Forest Brothers escaped the bunker under cover of darkness that night, hiding out in nearby farms or with relatives. Soviet security forces launched extensive searches, and the four were captured through the month of June.

The bunker itself had been destroyed in the course of the raid, and today only a grassy depression had marked its location until the memorial stone was added.

The bulk of the Forest Brothers'(Metsavennad) activities were curtailed by the occupying Soviet forces through the course of the 1950s, though the last Forest Brother in Estonia famously held out until as late as 1978, when he died evading capture by Soviet authorities. Equivalent organizations were active in Latvia and Lithuania.

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