Source: Leicestershire War Memorials Project.
Son of William Edward and Elsie Elizabeth Coleman (nee Coleman), of Northville Bristol.

Private Coleman was working at Spencer’s Engineering when the war began and joined the Territorial Army in Coventry Road to help defend his country.

He was with the 1st/5th Battalion and mobilised to Lillehammer in Norway to try to stem the advancing German troops.


On April 25, 1940, Private Coleman, along with two other local soldiers Jim Adcock and Len Blackmore, were in a small party sent forward to set road traps near Tretton.

A group of German soldiers fired on them and they tried to clamber over a wall to safety.

Private Coleman was hit by enemy fire and he was later buried in the Lillehammer Civil Cemetery. Jim Adcock was taken prisoner by the Germans and Len Blackmore escaped, making his way to Sweden and back home.

But at the time of his death his grandparents – who he lived with in Gardner Street, Market Harborough – had also recently died and his sister, Wendy, was ill in hospital, which meant his death was overlooked in the town. When the Market Harborough War Memorial was engraved with the names of the war dead, he was missed off.

The omission was noted many years later by his nephew, who worked with the RBL and HDC to add his name to the memorial.
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Taken, with photograph from Leicester Mercury website, and submitted by B. Hakewill in 2018.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/forgotten-soldier-19-added-ww2-1972545