Driver training for US Army

Sorry, but I was reading a Soviet account where the driver was shot and the fellow in the passenger seat couldn't drive. I know the Germans were hard pressed during the depression and many didn't know how to drive and had to be instructed (and there was a pre-war Nazi movement to train motor vehicle operators). By contrast many Americans knew how to drive a wheeled vehicle before the war, but how much driver training for jeeps or trucks did the American Army have to give? What percentage of American youths knew how to drive a car before enlisting in the Army? I recall an account of a visiting Japanese officer (college student) whose rental car broke down and an American farm girl asked if he needed help. She opened the hood and worked on it and got it going. It astonished the grateful Japanese officer who was left wondering, "If an American teenage girl could fix the car, what can the teenage boys do?"

Imagine being an motor pool mechanic and having to replace clutches or transmissions after a bunch of trainees burned them out? I knew a fellow who was a motor pool mechanic and part of his exam was to salvage parts and make a running motorcycle. Automatic transmissions weren't popular back then but the M-5 Stuart had it.

 

My Dad learned to drive truck on the farm,hauling cattle. CCC camp drive duece and a halfs. CAC hauled artillery. D-Day +31 drove CCKW through to Nuremburg. A lot of OJT.