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.
[1][2] His family lived at Whorouly, a small settlement on the Ovens River between Myrtleford and Wangaratta in Victoria, Australia.
Glover was ordained to the priesthood on 6 January 1932 at St Patrick's Church, Albury, by Bishop Joseph Wilfrid Dwyer of Wagga.
[3] Fr Glover first learnt to fly with Butler Air Transport Co. while a Parish Priest at Cootamundra, New South Wales, in 1936.
[4] 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.
These were Dave Brennan at the Omaura Training School, Alex J. Campbell, pastor at the highlands headquarters (Ramu, Kainantu), and Stuart Gander further west at Benabena.
[citation needed] After the town of Wau and Father Glover's church had been strafed by Japanese Zeros, he helped to evacuate Europeans from the Markham Valley.
Flying a Spartan 2-seater from Wau, re-built and maintained by Hungarian Karl Nagy, who had been Guinea Airways' chief engineer, Fr.
As time went on this route became too dangerous, so they hid the Spartan in the gardens of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission Headquarters at Kainantu where Alex J. Campbell was in charge.
The Moth was floated thirteen miles down the coast on a raft made from fuel drums, and while they worked on it near the Madang airfield, two air attacks took place.
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.