In the book Kamikaze diaries it says the japanese army was largely low educated men from rual areas. The kamikaze pilots was “drafted” from universities, so they were in for a rough threatment from the farm boys during training.
In the US and Canada a good many soldiers came from rural settings where education took a back seat to working on the farm, ranch or communal property. While most could read and write they were often at a grade school level.
Those with a decent education usually came from the cities and more often than not moved up the ranks fairly fast due to their abilities to read and understand complicated messages and words.
I would imagine this was fairly common throughout most militaries of the time.
It’s a good question but the answer can be misleading to modern readers. I think university and post secondary schooling was not at the numbers of today. I can imagine that the commonwealth counties had good educational system as did the U.S. But most likely few went to college and less to universities . That was the day. I know of several relatives who served in technical areas in the war, but had only little post education. I have read that schools did get busy during the war and after certainly after. Of course remember that woman probably didn’t go to that much school after high school. I dont think any of my woman relatives who served went past high school. And at the time that was sufficient. Based on norms of the day. As far as people coming from rural settings this may have some truth to it however, this is not ww1. The cities were full of people as people after the first world war were moving towards the cities now.
Just my thoughts.
High school was an aspiration for many. Many dropped out to support their families. Later on many went for factory jobs. One local veteran was made a linesman as he had electrical experience from GE. In those days you just showed up at the gate and work would be assigned, if available.
The university system was greatly expanded AFTER the war. Prior to this the system was very snall and relied entirely on tuition and endowments.
[quote=“bjwight, post:6, topic:7653”]
The university system was greatly expanded AFTER the war. Prior to this the system was very snall and relied entirely on tuition and endowments.
We are in an postion to not understand what was the reality at the time. The world war 2 series is less giving me new information but giving me a point to evaluate to know what information was avaiable in that week.