What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 8 November 2022.

Dudova was built in 2019.

Josef Duda was born into a military family in Pohořelec in Hradčany in 1905.

In 1923, he joined the Czechoslovak army, graduating from the Military Academy in Hranice in 1925.

He then studied at the Military Aviation Academy in Cheb, and at the equivalent institution in Prostějov, where he subsequently worked as a flying instructor and pilot.

When the Nazis occupied Bohemia and Moravia, Duda escaped to Poland, then to France, where he joined the French Air Force and trained Czech fighters in Chartres.

Duda left France in 1940, when it became obvious that the Nazis were going to occupy northern and western France; having travelled via Algeria, Morocco and Gibraltar, he arrived in Cardiff in August.

During his years in the UK, he joined the Royal Air Force, and worked in various locations, most notably the Bristol Flying School for Instructors and the Czechoslovak Inspectorate General.

He was awarded the CBE for his service in 1947.

However, he had already returned to Czechoslovakia in 1945, just days after the Prague Uprising.

When the communists took over in 1948, he was demoted and worked as a manual labourer and driver at the Hanáck Ironworks in Prostějov until the mid-1960s.

He died in 1977, and was rehabilitated shortly after the Velvet Revolution.

Since 2020, the 533rd Unmanned Systems Battalion in Prostějov has been named after him, and it’s less than three months since he was reburied there with full ceremony: https://acr.army.cz/informacni-servis/zpravodajstvi/dustojne-misto-posledniho-odpocinku–general-duda-nove-pochovan-na-prostejovskem-mestskem-hrbitove-237870/

The Battle of Britain London Monument has a page in Duda’s honour: https://bbm.org.uk/airmen/Duda.htm

(Duda, on the right, in Britain in 1940)

If you live in Prague 2 or Prague 3, Dudova can be used to exit the main train station without having to go into it or through the park outside it.

That park is referred to as Sherwood by some locals, and… I’m certainly grateful that this street was built, let’s just say that.

Cracking views, too.