Walter Toy

Submitted by: Jeanne Ostnes {Great Grand Daughter}

Walter Toy was born around 1863. Walter Toy served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

 

Walter Toy was born on the 1st January 1863 in Budock, only a few miles from the port of Falmouth in Cornwall. His father was a farm laborer, his mother a laundress and he was the fourth of seven children and the second son.

After he left school, Walter would only have had about three choices of what to do with his life - to follow his father and work on the land, the hard grind of working in the tin mines, or going to sea. His elder brother by five years, Charles, had already ;entered the Royal Navy and was a Signalman 2nd Class aboard H.M.S. "Warrior".

No doubt Walter worked with his father for a time, but with the example of his brother, and being of age to join the Navy as a Boy, he knew what he wanted to do.

The local papers carried advertisements asking boys of 15 to 16 and a half years of age to volunteer for the Royal Navy and they should apply to the Commanding Officer of H.M.S. "Ganges", a boys training ship, then moored in St Just Pool at Mylor, a short distance from Falmouth.