ONLY THOSE
WHO HAVE LOVED ONES LOST
CAN UNDERSTAND
WAR'S BITTER COST

SECOND LIEUTENANT FRED HOLLAND

SHERWOOD FORESTERS NOTTS AND DERBY REGIMENT

22ND AUGUST 1917 AGE 22

BURIED: ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE


Fred Holland was the son of the police superintendent at Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He was 15 and still at school, Lutterworth Grammar School, at the time of the 1911 census. This is about all I have been able to find out about him. He served with the 3rd Battalion the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment), but at the time he was wounded he was attached to the 1st Battalion, which had been involved in the 8th Division's attack on Westhoek on 31 July and on the Hanebeek on 16 August. Holland died on the 22 August.
His father signed for his inscription, which is regularly found on headstone inscriptions and In Memoriam columns. Another, perhaps more common, variation reads:

Only those who have loved and lost
Can understand the Great War's cost