Golden Gate Cemetery

[sandwichery]

Recently returned from this often over-looked facility in the city of San Mateo located south of San Francisco. It's almost like a mini-Arlington, there is so much history there.
Among those interred are 15 CMH recipients, 3 of the leading USN commanders from WWII and 24 victims of the ammunition ship explosion at Port Chicago of July 24, 1944. Also there are the graves of 44 Axis POWs and that of US Congressman Leo Ryan who was killed during the Jonestown Massacre of November 18, 1978.
Would highly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area.

 

[MontyB]

Recently returned from this often over-looked facility in the city of San Mateo located south of San Francisco. It's almost like a mini-Arlington, there is so much history there.
Among those interred are 15 CMH recipients, 3 of the leading USN commanders from WWII and 24 victims of the ammunition ship explosion at Port Chicago of July 24, 1944. Also there are the graves of 44 Axis POWs and that of US Congressman Leo Ryan who was killed during the Jonestown Massacre of November 18, 1978.
Would highly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area.

Cemeteries are amazing places to visit you learn a huge amount about places from their graveyards etc., Generally when I am overseas I visit New Zealand memorials as a rule but I also try and visit any historical ones in the area.

As a Kiwi Gallipoli (Turkey) is almost a bucket list requirement and well worth a visit followed very closely by Monte Cassino (Italy), Passchendaele (Belgium), Suda War Cemetary (Crete) and El Alamein (Egypt), I have now seen them all with the exception of Passchendaele which is scheduled for 2017 or 2018 if crowds permit.

As far as the USA goes I liked Gettysburg compared to Arlington, it was a far more peaceful site and far less regimented.

 

[sandwichery]

I was going to post some pictures, but I'm not allowed to yet. Guess I need to get more involved in the discussions.
I was disappointed when we visited Arlington. Maybe I was expecting too much. Seemed more like an amusement park than a cemetery. Hamm in Luxembourg, where Patton is buried, was great. Everyone was talking in whispers, totally unlike Arlington.

 

[MontyB]

I was going to post some pictures, but I'm not allowed to yet. Guess I need to get more involved in the discussions.
I was disappointed when we visited Arlington. Maybe I was expecting too much. Seemed more like an amusement park than a cemetery. Hamm in Luxembourg, where Patton is buried, was great. Everyone was talking in whispers, totally unlike Arlington.

I think if you post the pictures to a site like Photobucket or Flickr you can then link the image here using the "

" functions which Photobucket provides as standard.

I can't say I have been disappointed by New Zealand and Commonwealth overseas war cemetaries they are well maintained and easily accessed, the Italian one at El Alamein is an amazing piece of engineering and the German one is very German.

But as I think the one place I really recommend is Gettysburg, it is a national monument that is well worth visiting.

 

[sandwichery]

Totally agree about Gettysburg. A few years back we took an American Civil War vacation when we did many of the battlefields and Gettysburg will always stand out in our memories.
I guess our little discussion gave me enough posts to qualify me for posting attachments so here are the pictures of the cemetery in San Mateo.