Last Dambusters pilot Les Munro dies aged 96

“He was a fine man, not just because he was famous as part of the Dambusters but as a man and as a person he was a very fine person”, he said.

The last of the the Dambuster pilots, New Zealander Leslie Munro died after suffering heart problems in Auckland on Monday night.

Mr Munro, who was the association’s patron, had been unwell for the past two weeks.

He served as mayor of the Waitomo District from 1978 to 1995 and has a street, Les Munro Place, named after him near Te Kuiti.

“He was modest. Never talked about the war unless you asked questions”.

A Lancaster bomber flies over Derwent Reservoir in Derbyshire, England on May 16, 2013, as part of events marking the 70th Anniversary of an air-raid on three dams in Germany’s Ruhr Valley by a team of airmen dubbed the “Dambusters”.

The crews dropped bombs over the water which then exploded at the base of the dam walls.

Ron Mayhill, President of the New Zealand Bomber Command Association, said Sqd Ldr Munro died in hospital in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty.

Munro said at the time he was selling his war memorabilia to raise money for the maintenance of the Bomber Command Memorial in London.

He said: ‘In a way it’s very emotional.

In a statement on the association’s Facebook page, Dave Homewood wrote: “I have extremely sad news”.

The medals are now housed close to a Lancaster bomber – the same as the one Mr Munro once flew.

Munro took part in a number of other missions later in the war, including Operation Taxable, one of the many tactical deception ploys used by the Allies to confuse the Germans about the actual location for the D-Day invasion.

The last surviving pilot of the RAF’s legendary “Dambusters” bomber squadron has died in his native New Zealand at the age of 96.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key paid tribute to Munro.