Joseph Toye joined the US Army at a recruiting station in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in the days after Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He later joined Company E, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment,101st Airborne Division for service in World War II.
The native of Hughestown, Luzerne County was featured in a story in the Pittston Gazette in October 1943, shortly after the regiment shipped out to England to prepare for the invasion of Europe.
The story reads:
Pfc. Joseph Toye… has arrived overseas with a parachute infantry division according to word received by his mother, Mrs. Beatrice Toye, of Reading, formerly of Rock Street, Hughestown.
Pfc. Toye enlisted in military service [in the days] after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Prior to entering service he was employed at the Gray Iron Foundry, Reading.
He… is widely known in the Greater Pittston area. He is a brother of Mrs. Joseph Ruda, of Hughestown.
Toye was wounded numerous times serving in with Easy Company, but suffered a devastating leg wound at the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945 that knocked him out of the war. A German artillery shell had nearly blown off his right leg. Surgeons later finished the job.
He survived the war and returned home to Pennsylvania, where he later worked at Bethlehem Steel in Reading, PA. Toye passed away in 1995.
Actor Kirk Acevedo portrayed him in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
More World War II stories from the Coal Region
Lt. Harry Welsh training for the paratroopers in 1942 | Band of Brothers
Lieutenant Harry Welsh of ‘Band of Brothers’ – Wounded at Bastogne on Christmas Eve, 1944
A Coal Region soldier’s jump into Holland during Operation Market Garden in 1944
Podcast – A Pennsylvania soldier in the Battle of the Bulge
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