Tomorrow, Jack Robertson will celebrate his 100th birthday with a low-key afternoon tea with friends and family.
One guest will be friend Neville Selwood, of Dunedin, who met Mr Robertson in the now disbanded Otago Brevet Club.
He has researched Mr Robertson’s history in the Royal Air Force during World War 2.
"We were both in the Bomber Command in different squadrons. He was very revered."
In a Lancaster bomber, Mr Robertson logged 36 operations in many countries between October 1944 and February 1945.
He served mainly as a wireless operator, tapping messages in Morse code.
His family recalls the story of one near miss in which an enemy bullet struck his helmet and scraped his scalp.
Just three years ago, the British government presented the Bomber Command Clasp award to surviving members.
Niece Marie Heaps, of Cromwell, said when she moved him out to the town nine years ago she thought he would only live three months.
"But he’s made it here today."
Mr Robertson, who had two sisters, was born in Kaitangata to parents who immigrated from Scotland.
After returning from the war, he took over the family dairy farm and later developed it into a sheep farm.
He played for Kaitangata’s Crescent Rugby Club and was a keen golfer.
Despite being right-handed, he played the game left-handed. The strategy must have worked, as he achieved a six handicap.
He married Dorothy, now deceased, in 1959. Years later, the couple retired to Balclutha. They had no children. Mr Selwood said he was a "wonderful vegetable gardener.
Mr Robertson now lives at the Ripponburn rest-home in Cromwell.
Mrs Heaps suspected his secret to living so long was drinking "a bottle of Scotch a day, straight".
"Don’t forget it," Mr Robertson said.
