John Corbett Glover

On 14 February 1942, the day that civil governance of Papua ceased, Fr. Glover joined the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles at Wau and was given the rank of Warrant Officer II by the NGVR Commanding Officer Major W.M. Edwards. On 7 March he was given the rank of lieutenant.

On 28 March 1942 they left Mt. Hagen and crossed the mountains to the southern coast, where they ran into some very bad weather and made a forced landing on a beach to the west of Daru with only a cup full of fuel remaining. Here they persuaded some local natives to row them to Thursday Island. On the way they transferred to a lugger which took them the remaining distance to Thursday Island.

On 10 April 1942 the army asked Campbell if he wished to evacuate as they couldn't guarantee any support if he stayed. The mission had been bombed with minor damage resulting, but enemy planes were in the skies all around. He decided to leave and sent word to fellow missionaries Brennan and Gander to join him. Brennan walked in from Omaura six days later, and together they set off on the 320 km trek, picking up Gander along the way at Bena Bena.

Following Prime Minister John Curtin's declaration of war with Japan on 8 December 1941, hundreds of civilians had been flown to Port Moresby from Wewak, Lae, Salamaua, Bulolo and Wau, by many people, including veteran miner Norman Wilde, who evacuated 11 Chinese from Salamaua in his Tiger Moth.

They worked on the Moth for a week; in that time they made an auxiliary fuel tank out of some scrap galvanised iron and joined it to the existing tank with a piece of copper tube that Alex Campbell had salvaged from a plane that had crashed there in 1937. Nagy was to sit in the back nursing a bed pan full of extra fuel and transfer it to the main fuel tank with a large enema syringe donated by Alex Campbell from his store of medical supplies. The first attempt at reaching Mt. Hagen failed, but after some further modifications to the Moth a second attempt succeeded.

Fr Glover first learnt to fly with Butler Air Transport Co. while a Parish Priest at Cootamundra, New South Wales, in 1936. He was posted to New Guinea with the Divine Word Mission in 1938 where he began flying aircraft for the Mission in 1940.

Glover was ordained to the priesthood on 6 January 1932 at St Patrick's Church, Albury, by Bishop Joseph Wilfrid Dwyer of Wagga. He received his primary education at the Christian Brothers' College, Albury, and later attended the Ecclesiastical College at Manly.

John Corbett Glover (4 July 1909 – 1 January 1949) was a Catholic priest who was responsible for the successful evacuation of civilians trapped in the New Guinea Highlands in 1942 after the Japanese landings at Lae and Salamaua.