Holme St GilesWar Memorial
 North
wall memorial tablet:
In Loving Memory of
HERBERT CHARLES KEY,
LANCE-CORPORAL ⅛TH SHERWOOD FORESTERS
KILLED IN ACTION IN NO MAN’S LAND
IN FRANCE.
SEPTEMBER 12TH 1917,
AGED 22 YEARS.
HE DIED THE NOBLEST DEATH A MAN MAY DIE
FIGHTING FOR GOD, AND RIGHT, AND LIBERTY,
AND SUCH A DEATH IS IMMORTALITY
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The official entry says he was born in Holme and enlisted in Newark. He is
listed in records as “killed in action in France/Flanders.” The
1/8th Sherwood Foresters were involved in 1916 in the Somme offensive and in
1917 near Ypres at Passchendale which was the most dreaded part of the line
for soldiers. L/C Key was, therefore, involved in some of the worst trench
warfare in the 1st World War, most probably going “over the top”.
Grave markers on the north side of the church bear the “Key” family
name, presumably parents and brother.
Within ten metres is the grave of another soldier,
Arthur Deane, 305800, who, records show, enlisted like Herbert Key at Newark
and was also a lance-corporal in the 1/8th Sherwood Foresters. He died of wounds
two months after Herbert Key, also in France.
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