Geez, I learned to drive a tractor first, and that wasn't an automatic by any stretch of the imagination. A four speed manual transmission in a car was nothing by the time I learned how to drive a car. It was second nature, and a damn' sight easier than a farm tractor.
I think I learned to drive in less than 20 minutes. Keeping a tractor between rows of corn is a lot harder than keeping a puny V-8 Olds 442 between two yellow lines!
One thing that happened in that era was the major consolidation of farms. Not that many farm boys and girls signing up for the service any more because their total numbers are way down.