Help needed: 4854755 Norman Holland, Royal Leicester Regiment

I met a chap on a recent trip to Dunkirk his Dad had been there about the same time as mine but he didnt know much about his time there. He was in the Royal Leicester Regiment Norman Holland 4854755 9.9.1908 born in Darlington any info or where to start looking would be much appreciated many thanks

 

Service records are the only place to start, the process for obtaining records can be found here: Get a copy of military service records

 

Presumably you have the guy's contact details so you can pass that on?
Wiki shows he most likely served in 2/5th Bn Royal Leicestershire
The 2/5th Battalion, created in 1939 as a duplicate of the 1/5th Battalion, and containing many formers of that battalion, was part of the 138th Infantry Brigade of the 46th Infantry Division and was sent to France in April 1940. The battalion fought in the Battle of France as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in 1940, taking part in the Dunkirk evacuation, before returning to England.

Rather strangely I can't find any Royal Leicestershire deaths DURING WW2, all 11 are post 1945....
Ah! The "Royal" must be post WW2, so searching for Leicestershire Regiment turns up 20 on the Dunkirk Memorial, all 2/5th Bn.
Might be worth suggesting he obtains their War Diaries for May 1940.. although due to the confusion of the evacuation, they may be sketchy

 

Royal Leicestershire Regiment - Royal Leicestershire Regiment

There's a database on the above site which lists former members of the Regiment, and it's usually pretty good especially if the persons Army Number falls within the block allocation for the Leicestershire Regiment.

Alas, both the name and the Army No aren't listed in the database

I've also checked the Missing Personnel files for 2/5th Bn Leicestershire Regiment for both North Africa and Italy and the name and number don't turn up in them either.

As mentioned above, if you can get the Service Records and establish exactly which battalion he served with then you could then start looking at the correct war diaries and the other missing personnel files for other theatres of the war, with a slim chance he might be mentioned in them.

 

From Ancestry family trees - for background information

Norman Holland
Birth: 9 Sept 1908 (9 Sep 1908) - Durham
Death: 19 Oct 1990 - Darlington
Marriage: 12 Sept 1936 (12 Sep 1936) - Darlington, Durham
Spouse: Jane Earls//Hall
F: William Holland
M: Bertha Lucy Sale

TD