New lead in hunt for relatives of WW2 soldiers

A man searching for the relatives of six World War Two soldiers who helped liberate a French village has issued another appeal after receiving a tip-off.

Leigh Dalton is the great-nephew of Trooper Benjamin Eyre, who served alongside Lance Sergeant George Richard Williams and four others during the conflict.

Mr Williams was in the 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and died aged 27 while liberating Le Fournet, in Normandy, from German occupation in 1944.

Mr Dalton said someone had come forward with previously unknown details about Mr Williams's children.

Mr Dalton is helping the mayor of Le Fournet, who reads out the names of the six men at their memorial every year, trace the families.

He also attended the 80th anniversary event in the village in August this year.

According to the new information, Mr Williams's son was called Eric Williams, and he married Janice Norris.

Meanwhile, Janice Norris was known to have a brother called Richard Norris, who was born in 1946.

Richard Norris went on to marry a woman called Jane Broadhurst, with whom he had three children. One of them - Dean John Norris - is believed to still be in the Leicester area, Mr Dalton said.

"We could be going in the right direction with this," Mr Dalton added.

Mr Williams had strong family ties to Leicester and was the son of Thomas and Ada Williams.

He was married to Ellen Williams, and had two other unidentified children.

Mr Dalton told the BBC that finding the fallen soldiers' families would mean an "awful lot" to the villagers.

"[The mayor] told me that it had long been her dream to sit and talk with family members of the men and say thank you," he said.

Mr Dalton said, based upon his research, that the men were searching for a river crossing and were likely killed by a landmine.

"Unless you do something particularly heroic, it's unlikely you get directly named in the reports," he said.

The full list of soldiers on the memorial is:

• Lance Sergeant G.R. Williams, 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment
• Sergeant A. Gray, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
• Private E.S. Maunton, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
• Trooper W.R.C. Stevenson, 49th (West Riding) Reconnaissance Regiment
• Trooper B.G. Eyre, 49th (West Riding) Reconnaissance Regiment
• Trooper A. Smith, 49th (West Riding) Reconnaissance Regiment

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