One of the few remaining B Company Maori Battalion veterans was laid to rest yesterday at a ceremony attended by hundreds of mourners.
Te Puhi Patara died at his home on Saturday, just metres from the marae where he was a fixture for so many years.
According to a family member Mr Patara was not only known as a war hero, but was heavily involved with the iwi at Ruamata where he would be seen mowing the lawns at the nearby school and marae grounds.
He was also part of a group that helped reinstate local Anzac Day services at the marae and other marae on the eastern shores of Lake Rotorua. Mr Patara made the trip into town every Thursday to meet with friends and comrades of the Te Arawa Maori Returned Services League at the Rotorua RSA.
"He was a beautiful speaker of the Maori language and was never known to be grumpy and was always there for his people," a family member said.
"He was a straight-up guy, a good man, a good soldier and a good mate. "He never said anything bad about anyone."
Mr Gillies said they spent a lot of time together after the war.
"We'd travel together to reunions and things like that. We were a team. Puhi was a great family man as well, we will miss him."
It is understood that Mr Gillies is the only Te Arawa member of B Company alive today with the only other member of the company being Hare Nuku who is of Tuhoe descent.
Yesterday's tangi was led by Ratana Church priest Tahuriwakanui Rewa. Mourners sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone, among a number of other hymns, before he was farewelled off the marae by a haka from students at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Ruamata and buried at the nearby urupa.
In March 2013, Mr Patara gave one of his few interviews about the war to NZME journalist James Fuller.
"Mr Patara has the dignified air of an ex-soldier. The hair, neatly combed back, is white but impressively full for a man closing in on the start of his tenth decade. His snowy white moustache is perfectly trimmed," the article stated.
After the war Mr Patara spent time working for the Lands and Survey Department as well as for the Ministry of Works. He married his wife, Te Tiriti O Waitangi Patara (Tapsell), on October 21, 1948, at Matata Church. The couple had 11 children, four of whom died in infancy. After nearly 64 years of marriage, Mr Patara's wife died in 2012.