My father, Ervin Hoida, who has died aged 105, was a free Czech veteran of the second world war who afterwards lived in the UK for the rest of his life.
Ervin fought with the tank battalion of the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade and supported the siege of Dunkirk, where his valour earned him the Czechoslovak War Cross. In 1945 his tank took part in the victorious allied entry into Prague.
