Last week, the Waihī Armistice 100 group met with two of Ben's descendants, Ashley Smith of Katikati and Danny Thorn of Auckland, to talk about Ben's story.
Waihī RSA secretary and treasurer Cliff Hayward MBE, along with the 6 Hauraki Association president in Tauranga, Des Anderson, also spoke to the audience on Wednesday at Banana Pepper.
Danny Thorn's father was Ben's half-brother, and he had little information about him before he started to investigate.
"Both Tom and Ben had written postcards to their little brother Georgie, my father, who kept them all those years in a battered old shoebox under the bed," Thorn said.
"There was a photo of them, standing side by side, in their crisp new military uniforms. They looked smart and similar, but not the same."
Thorn travelled to Ypres in Belgium last November for the centenary of his uncle's death.
He found no grave, but Ben's name was on the Roll of Honour among the Cloisters.
"I retraced his final steps those few hundred metres up from Scott's Post to the foot of the butte," Thorn said.
"Today one can still clearly see the outline of the openings into the tunnel and the spot where he was killed. It's on the left side.
"From up on top of the butte one overlooks the entire scene."
Great-nephew Ashley also retraced Ben's journey during World War I with the help of a cousin.
He then travelled to the Western Front with friends, who all went to pay respects to their ancestors lost in the Great War.
"Ben and Tom went to war together, and the sad part is that Ben was killed when the war was nearly over. Terribly sad.
"Being in Passchendaele, you see how war is really stupid, with so many lives lost," he said.
Along with nearly 10,000 other soldiers, Ben's portrait will be displayed during the Armistice special centennial commemoration from November 9-11 at Waihī Memorial Hall.
More than 2000 poppies have been knitted by community groups and individuals across town.
