Posted by john k. seidts on October 12, 2000 at 22:46:39:
In Reply to: WW II discharge papers - truck driver posted by Tom @ Snake River 4x4 on October 11, 2000 at 23:36:28:
All soldiers in the US Army in WWII were classed by their occupation. These occupational codes were made up of civilian occupation codes with numbers less than 500, and Special Army Occupation Codes, which were greater than 500. The civilian occupation codes were just a number assigned to a related civilian job. The Special Army Occupation Codes were jobs without civilian equivalent, like infantryman, artilleryman, etc. TRUCK DRIVER LT 345 stood for Light Truck Driver, classification code 345. Light trucks were classed by the Army as anything less than 1.5 ton in class, i.e. WC51, MB jeep, Ford GTB (had to sneak it in there). For those who have served in the last 20 or 30 years, these were the beginning of the Military Occupational Specialty Codes, or MOS.
Little bit of history on driver training in WWII. Driver training was organized to teach people first to drive, and second to operate vehicle types. So many people were in the Army who had never driven, it was considered a critical skill at one point. Vehicle type training was given by instructors familiar with a particular vehicle or vehicles, and once you qualified on a specific weight class, you were considered trained to drive that weight class e.g, if you trained on a WC63, you could also drive the obviously superior 1.5 ton GTB's. When you completed this training, you were issued a motor vehicle operator's card which listed the types of vehicles you were capable of driving. These cards show up now and then, and have listed (from memory) the following
Passenger Car
1/4 ton truck
1/2 ton and 3/4 ton trucks
1.5 ton to 2.5 ton trucks
Heavy trucks
Half Tracks
Tanks
Recovery Vehicles
There may have been more, but I haven't looked at an original card in a while. The cards were light blue, and folded in half. The vehicle types were listed on the inside. Someone sells blank reproductions of these, but I don't know who.