National Cemetery Administration
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

Visitation Hours: The cemetery is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Office Hours: Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed federal holidays except Memorial Day.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific staff thanks everyone for their patience and understanding while we are engaged in a safety enhancement project from mid-June 2024 to the end of March 2025 at Columbarium Courts 1–5. This project will replace the original concrete sidewalks and flat surfaces that were constructed over 40 years ago. These surfaces are cracking due to settling and pose a safety hazard to visitors.
Columbarium Courts 1–5 will be closed to visitors until March 31st when the project is scheduled to be completed. This project will not delay services or the placement of urns. Cemetery staff will place the urns in the niche after construction has halted for the day.
Permanent bud vases in Columbarium Courts 1–5 will be labeled by the cemetery staff and placed in a safe location until they can be returned to their rightful place once construction is completed.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific has space available for cremated remains in the columbarium. We may be able to accommodate casketed remains in the same gravesite of previously interred family members. Periodically, however, burial space may become available due to disinterment from an existing gravesite or for other reasons. If burial space is available at the time of request, the cemetery will assign a gravesite to an eligible Veteran or family member. Since there is no way to know in advance when a gravesite may become available, please contact the cemetery at the time of need to inquire whether space is available.
Burial in a national cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces who have met a minimum active duty service requirement and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.
A Veteran's spouse, widow or widower, minor dependent children, and under certain conditions, unmarried adult children with disabilities may also be eligible for burial. Eligible spouses and children may be buried even if they predecease the Veteran.
Members of the reserve components of the armed forces who die while on active duty or who die while on training duty, or were eligible for retired pay, may also be eligible for burial.
Fax all discharge documentation to the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at 1-866-900-6417 and follow-up with a phone call to 1-800-535-1117.
For information on scheduled burials in our national cemeteries, please go to the Daily Burial Schedule.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is in an extinct volcano near the center of Honolulu, Hawaii.
On either side of the grand stairs leading to the memorial are eight courts of the missing on which are inscribed the names of the 18,095 American World War II missing from the Pacific, excluding those from the southwest Pacific, and 8,210 American missing from the Korean War. These names were listed on the Korean War Courts of the Missing at the time of the dedication in 1966. Two half courts have been added at the foot of the staircase that contain the names of 2,504 Americans missing from the Vietnam War. At the top of the stairs is a chapel flanked by galleries containing mosaic maps and descriptions of the achievements of the American armed forces in the central and south Pacific regions and in Korea.
The memorial was established by American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) to honor the sacrifices and achievements of American armed forces in the Pacific during World War II and the Korean War. The memorial grew in 1980 to include the missing of the Vietnam War, and it expanded further in 2012 with the addition of two new pavilions. One pavilion houses an orientation map of the memorial and the other includes two mosaic battle maps depicting the Vietnam War.
For educational materials and additional information on this cemetery, please visit the Education section, located below.
The maintenance of gravesites by visitors (e.g., cutting grass; trenching around graves/markers; painting markers) is not allowed.
Fresh cut flowers, floral wreaths, and sprays in metal (not glass) containers may be placed at any time on graves; in designated areas; or in approved, mounted flower vases in the old columbarium.
The staff at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific will sweep the cemetery of all flowers every Friday to enhance the cemetery's appearance. All flowers will be removed and discarded from the columbaria and inground interment sites. Permanent vases will be emptied and placed inside their holders for the owner's convenience. Temporary vases will be emptied, cleaned and placed in the storage bins for easy access. This practice is widespread throughout the National Cemetery Administration to assist with beautification and maintaining the high standards of appearance for all National Cemeteries. Flowers typically wilt after a few days in hot tropical climate inside Punchbowl crater. Discarding wilted, dried flowers will enhance the cemetery's appearance. Friday is the optimal day for the cemetery staff to pick up flowers. Most family members and visitors place flowers at gravesites on weekends. Flowers will stay longer at the gravesites when they are placed on the weekends or beginning of the week. Flower vases will be emptied and placed in the bins after they are cleaned, ready for use when family members arrive.
Permanent plantings and commemorative items may not be placed on gravesites. Permanent plantings, statues, vigil lights, glass objects of any kind, pin wheels, balloons, wind chimes, stuffed toys and similar items are not permitted.
Potted plants and artificial flowers will be permitted on gravesites only during the period five days before and five days after Christmas Day. Christmas trees, no matter what size, are not considered potted plants and are not permitted.
Floral items and/or other types of decorations are not allowed to be attached to grave markers, niche covers or columbarium walls.
The religious convention of placing fruits and non-alcoholic beverages on graves is allowed. Due to limited space in the columbarium, we request that the placement of these items be minimized in that area.
Permanent in-ground flower vases:
To promote safety and standardize the appearance of Punchbowl with other cemeteries in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific has established the following procedures for personal inground flower vases:
- Personal inground flower vases will no longer be installed.
- When personal inground flower vases become unserviceable and pose a hazard during mowing operations, they will be removed and returned to the family.
- Permanent flower vases are not allowed in the columbarium area.
Families are solely responsible for the safeguarding, maintenance, and repair of their vase. The National Cemetery does not repair or replace lost, missing, or stolen vases.
Few national cemeteries can compete with the dramatic natural setting of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The "Punchbowl" was formed some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago during the Honolulu period of secondary volcanic activity. A crater resulted from the ejection of hot lava through cracks in the old coral reefs which, at the time, extended to the foot of the Koolau Mountain Range.
Although there are various translations of the Punchbowl's Hawaiian name, "Puowaina," the most common is "Hill of Sacrifice." This translation closely relates to the history of the crater. The first known use was as an altar where Hawaiians offered human sacrifices to pagan gods and the killed violators of the many taboos. Later, during the reign of Kamehameha the Great, a battery of two cannons was mounted at the rim of the crater to salute distinguished arrivals and signify important occasions. Early in the 1880s, leasehold land on the slopes of the Punchbowl opened for settlement and in the 1930s, the crater was used as a rifle range for the Hawaii National Guard. Toward the end of World War II, tunnels were dug through the rim of the crater for the placement of shore batteries to guard Honolulu Harbor and the south edge of Pearl Harbor.
During the late 1890s, a committee recommended that the Punchbowl become the site for a new cemetery to accommodate the growing population of Honolulu. The idea was rejected for fear of polluting the water supply and the emotional aversion to creating a city of the dead above a city of the living.
Fifty years later, Congress authorized a small appropriation to establish a national cemetery in Honolulu with two provisions: that the location be acceptable to the War Department, and that the site would be donated rather than purchased. In 1943, the governor of Hawaii offered the Punchbowl for this purpose. The $50,000 appropriation proved insufficient, however, and the project was deferred until after World War II. By 1947, Congress and veteran organizations placed a great deal of pressure on the military to find a permanent burial site in Hawaii for the remains of thousands of World War II servicemen on the island of Guam awaiting permanent burial. Subsequently, the Army again began planning the Punchbowl cemetery; in February 1948 Congress approved funding and construction began.
Prior to the opening of the cemetery for the recently deceased, the remains of soldiers from locations around the Pacific Theater—including Wake Island and Japanese POW camps—were transported to Hawaii for final interment. The first interment was made Jan. 4, 1949. The cemetery opened to the public on July 19, 1949, with services for five war dead: an unknown serviceman, two Marines, an Army lieutenant and one civilian—noted war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Initially, the graves at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific were marked with white wooden crosses and Stars of David—like the American cemeteries abroad—in preparation for the dedication ceremony on the fourth anniversary of V-J Day. Eventually, over 13,000 soldiers and sailors who died during World War II would be laid to rest in the Punchbowl.
Despite the Army's extensive efforts to inform the public that the star- and cross-shaped grave markers were only temporary, an outcry arose in 1951 when permanent flat granite markers replaced them. A letter from the Quartermaster General to Senator Paul Douglas in December 1952, explained that while individual markers are inscribed according to the appropriate religious faith:
Crosses do not mark the graves of the dead of our country in other national cemeteries. No cross marks the burial of our revered Unknown Soldier. From Arlington to Golden Gate, from Puerto Rico to Hawaii, the Government's markers in national cemeteries for all our hero—dead are of the traditional designs…[s]ome are upright and some are flat. None is in the form of a religious emblem.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific was the first such cemetery to install Bicentennial Medal of Honor headstones, the medal insignia being defined in gold leaf. On May 11, 1976, a total of 23 of these were placed on the graves of medal recipients, all but one of whom were killed in action. The Punchbowl has become one of the area's most popular tourist destinations. More than five million visitors come to the cemetery each year to pay their respects to the dead and to enjoy the panoramic view from the Punchbowl. One of the most breathtaking views of the Island of Oahu can be found while standing at the highest point on the crater's rim.
In August 2001, about 70 generic unknown markers for the graves of men known to have died during the attack on Pearl Harbor were replaced with markers that included "USS Arizona" after it was determined they perished on this vessel. In addition, new information that identified grave locations of 175 men whose graves were previously marked as unknown resulted in the installation of new markers in October 2002. The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Monuments and Memorials
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific contains a memorial pathway that is lined with a variety of memorials that have been donated by various organizations and foreign governments to honor America's veterans. As of 2012, there were 74 such memorials throughout the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific—most commemorating service members of 20th-century wars, including those killed at Pearl Harbor.