Instruction Books/Operator's Manuals

[David Dunlop]

Does anyone know if these military vehicle publications were produced for all vehicles, throughout World War Two? I am referring to what is commonly referred to as a 'Driver's Handbook', which is typically pocketbook sized, possibly to fit easily into a battle dress pocket.

Over the years, I have seen many Cab 11 and 12 CMP manuals of this style (both Ford and Chevrolet), but I do not ever recall seeing one for a Cab 13 vehicle. Similarly for the Carrier fleet of vehicles, I have seen Instruction Books for the early marks, but not the later ones.

I am thinking that since these Instruction Books contained an abridged version of the more detailed contents of the vehicle Maintenance Manuals, and most vehicles came with a set of manuals anyway, the Instruction Books may have been deemed redundant and discontinued. And yet, at least here in Canada, the 1950's M-Series vehicles had what they called 'Operator's Manuals' published for them and I have seen an even smaller type of publication produced in the USA for the M-151 in the 1960's.

David

[Keith Webb]

They certainly made the driver handbooks for individual chassis types, here's one of the rarer ones, a Ford F60T driver handbook, but if you mean more in-depth versions such as the ones for the early types then no. Those were printed before they went to the larger format MB-C1 and MB-C2 and MB-F1 covering all chassis types.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi David

There are Drivers Handbooks for the Pattern 13 3 Tons and HUPs I have copies for my trucks. There are also reprints of some of them kicking around.

Cheers Phil

[Grant Bowker]

All of the Driver's Handbooks that I have are for Cab 13 (or variant in the case of F60B). This includes F60L-HB1, F60L-HB1(W), F15A-HB1, F60T-HB1, F60B-HB1, C8A-HB2, C60-HB1 and C60X-HB1. The HB1 usually indicates that this is the first version of the publication.

The earlier publications with illustrations of 11/12 cab that I have were Instruction Book - Driving Maintenance Repair and the successive versions were first to (at least) fifth editions. Earlier editions (at least to second edition) seem to have covered both Ford and Chevrolet. Later editions (third onward?) seem to have been split for the different makes. The cover of most of the Instruction Books that I have is marked "Built For The Department Of National Defence Canada" which implies that there were separate editions for other users - British War Department, etc.

Both Instruction Books and Driver's Handbooks were similar in size.

[Brian Gough]

Hi all,

I can confirm there are also Driver's Handbooks for the 13 Cab C15A and C30. Some of the ones I have seen also have a few additional pink pages which are Tropical Supplements.

Follow this link: http://www.lwdparts.com/ to Dirk Leegwater's website and look under CMP Reference Books for pictures of some of the books previously mentioned.

Brian

[Peter Duggan]

David,

There is a copy of the Operators Manual for the Ford Lynx 11 at the Canadian War Museum, in Ottawa. For a small fee they will photocopy it for anyone that requests it.

Peter