The last of the Dambusters pilots, Les Munro, was one of the country's most decorated war heroes with 12 medals including a Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross personally bestowed by King George VI.
He was the world's last surviving Dambusters pilot and one of only three surviving aircrew from the mission, code named Operation Chastise.
Only 11 of the 19 planes returned from the overnight raid on May 16, 1943, and a total of 53 of 133 airmen who volunteered for the operation were killed. Three were taken prisoner.
Mr Munro's plane was hit by enemy fire and forced to turn back, but the raid successfully breached two of three dams and damaged the third, marking a crucial victory for the Allied Forces in World War II.
Flak hit as his plane came over the island of Vlieland. The plane was within an hour of its target, the Sorpe dam, but the damage meant Mr Munro was unable to receive vital instructions from his navigator and bomber, necessary not only to reach the dam, but to avoid enemy fire and drop the bomb at precisely the right moment.
"It was inviting suicide to carry on," Mr Munro told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend earlier this year.
Despite suffering an almost 40 per cent casualty rate, Mr Munro says the atmosphere in the mess after the raid "was a mood of celebration because they'd breached the two primary targets, the Mohne and the Eder".
WW2 war hero, Les Munro with a painting of himself by royal portrait painter Richard Stone. Photo/John Borren
Later, Mr Munro and the other pilots of 617 Squadron were involved in Operation Taxable, a mission to confuse the Germans about the location of the D-Day landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Despite the risks the Dambusters took "it was just part of our job", Mr Munro said.
Mr Munro said the only time he felt fear was on his first operation for 97 Squadron mining the mouth of the Gironde River in western France.
"The outline of the coast was black and ominous looking. There were no lights showing. I wondered whether one, we were in the right place or two, whether we were suddenly going to be fired at. Right through the rest of my operations, I never had that occasion to feel fear again because I was always too busy if we were in trouble, getting the plane out of trouble and making sure we could escape."
Earlier this year Mr Munro made headlines for offering his war medals for auction overseas in a bid to raise funds to maintain London's Bomber Command Memorial. The memorial at Green Park commemorates 55,573 aircrew, including 1679 New Zealanders, who died in World War II.
The auction was stopped after British war collector Lord Ashcroft intervened amid public concern about the loss of Mr Munro's medals to New Zealand. He offered 75,000 ($149,810) to the RAF endowment fund charged with generating income for the upkeep of the memorial, and in exchange, Mr Munro has donated his medals, logbooks and other memorabilia to Motat museum in Auckland.
Despite his war hero status, Mr Munro told the paper in April he had been mulling the futility of war in recent years.
"I have some difficulty in understanding why countries go to war to achieve objectives which should really be solved by discussion."
Mr Munro's contribution to the community went further than just his war service. He farmed with his family in the King Country until 1975, and during that time became involved in local and regional politics.
He served as a councillor on the New Zealand Local Government Association, and was chairman and mayor of Waitomo for 17 years until 1995, retiring to Tauranga after the death of his wife, Betty.
* A RAF bombing mission to hit power supplies to Nazi Germany's industrial heartland. * A bouncing bomb that skipped across water was developed to be dropped from close range. * Airmen were trained in specially-modified Lancaster bombers. * The bombs breached two of the three dams in the Ruhr Valley.
