 Several stories relate that he died either in a battle against a Soviet tank group or in the stormy Baltic Sea when trying to make his way to Sweden aboard one of the last small boats fleeing the country.A look into his family tree, however, reveals that on November 22, 1944, Pitka was in combat with a Soviet battalion in Kõue parish.His troops lost the battle, and Pitka committed suicide by injecting a sedating syringe, so as to not fall into the hands of the Soviets alive.