Golden Gate National Cemetery
1300 Sneath Lane
San Bruno, CA 94066
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Congress authorized construction of the facility in 1937, with the first interments in 1941. The cemetery was officially dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1942. Then-Attorney General Earl Warren (and later U.S. Supreme Court justice) was keynote speaker at the ceremony. Golden Gate is one of a large number of U.S. Army planned cemeteries started in the 1930s and completed during the 1940s. They were designed specifically to provide abundant burial opportunities in locations around the nation in cities with very large veteran populations.
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One of America’s most valiant naval officers—Adm. Chester W. Nimitz— is buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery. A number of distinguished officers who served under him are also buried here. The 44 German and Italian prisoners-of-war interred here were captured in North Africa after the collapse of the German Afrika Corps under the command of Lt. Gen. Erwin Rommel in 1943. The POWs were housed at Camp Beale and Camp Cook in California and Camp Rupert in Idaho, where they were originally buried at the respective post cemeteries. When the posts closed, the POWs were re-interred at Golden Gate. Additionally, 24 African-American sailors who perished while loading Liberty ships in the Port Chicago incident on July 17, 1944, and whose remains were subsequently unidentifiable, are buried as Unknowns in Section P.