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Volvo trucks and lost WWII allied aircraft in New Guinea. Biglorryblog has Gary to thank for this lot!

  • 11 June 2009
  • By Biglorryblog

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Gary Richards, Biglorryblog's man for top Volvo and Mack stories down-under has sent me this selection... And in case you're wondering what the hell these are... They're palm nuts (well obviously I knew that). And they need trucks like this to harvest them...

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An I imagine a bag load of palm nuts weighs quite a bit too. Anyway, Gary tells me: "Hi Brian, I thought you might like to see some more hard-working Volvos working in New Britain, Papua, New Guinea, harvesting a huge amount of palm nuts - for the production of palm oil."

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"The first observation you will see in the vegetation and equipment bears little resemblance to what you see in 'old' Britain... No surprise there!"

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The FMs are specially adapted for the application - to handle "jungle bashing" needed to recover the nut harvest i.e. the full frontal mesh guard, double bumpers, raised muffler and fuel tanks, etc."

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Today, the island is a tranquil location, helping humanity by growing a renewable energy source...

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And the palm nuts are at the top of the very tall tree the guy is leaning against! But the island it hasn't always been the quiet paradise it might appear... And click through here to see what Gary means!"

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Gary continues: "As you can see with derelict WWII Allied aircraft that are still scattered in the jungle - complete with a 75mm cannon!! Enjoy!" Well you've found my achilles heel alright mate! Yes it looks like a North American B25 (aka Mitchell) with the 'solid' nose. As well as a big cannon up front some were also converted so that in place of the perspex nose used by the Bombardier they had eight, 50-cal machine guns instead... Talk about real firepower! One US Army Air Force squadron based in the Pacfic in particular became quite famous for their low-level strafing expertise in B25s - I think they were called the 'Air Apaches' (?). Aviation artist Robert Taylor did a nice painting of them if I recall which I've always fancied getting. Anyroadup for a movie pie quiz what film featured B25s flying out of an Island in the Med? Clue... There's a 'catch' in it.

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Yep, definitely a B25...or I'm not Biglorryblog.

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However, I'm not so sure about this one..it looks more like a Lockheed Hudson (or PV Ventura?) What does the aviation branch of the Biglorryblog anorak army think?