About 60 members of his extended family and friends, travelled from as far as the United States, the Middle East and Australia to join him in celebrating his birthday, at the Yvette Williams Retirement Home yesterday.
And this week, Polish-born Mr Adamczyk was also congratulated in person by Polish honorary consul Winsome Dormer, of Christchurch, on behalf of the Polish ambassador.
One of his children, Ingrid Adamczyk, of Dunedin, said her father had experienced a great deal in his life, including the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, which also triggered the outbreak of World War 2.
She and her siblings had a ''deep sense of respect'' for their father, who had led a ''remarkable life'', including an active retirement, during which he had long maintained a ''fantastic'' garden, travelled and written an extensive memoir.
After the German occupation of Poland, Mr Adamczyk, who had earlier begun a cadetship with the Polish Air Force, left his homeland and was interned in a camp in Romania.
He later made a night-time escape, and travelled by boat from the Black Sea coast, via Beiruit, to France.
During the war, he served as a pilot with the Polish Air Force, under British command, from August 1940.
He served with No 301 Polish Bomber Squadron, flying missions over Norway, France, Germany, Poland, North Africa and Egypt.
He also joined the No 138 (Special Duties) Squadron, flying agents and supplies to the underground armies in occupied countries.
He received several medals, ribbons and bars for his contribution to the war effort, including the Polish Virituti Militari medal, awarded for outstanding achievement on the battlefield.
This was awarded after a mission in which he was wounded during a bombing raid over enemy territory, and further injured when the bomber he was piloting crash-landed in England and caught fire.
Most people took things for granted, but war was ''like an earthquake'' that ''shakes everyone awake'', he once wrote.
In 1948, he migrated to Australia and met his future wife, Patricia, aboard the SS Asturias.
The couple, and their first child, Adela, moved to New Zealand in 1952, where three more children were born.
Mr Adamczyk initially worked as a carpenter at Lake Waitaki and on the Waitaki bridge, moving with the family to Marlborough in 1960.
After his first wife died in 1967, he had four children to bring up.
He subsequently lived in Marlborough for many years, before recently shifting to Dunedin.
