SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 20--Admiral of the Fleet Chester W. Nimitz died today in his home here. He would have been 81 years old on Thursday. During World War II, he was in charge of assembling the Pacific force of two million men and 1,000 ships that drove the Japanese back to their homeland. The former commander-in-chief of the United States Pacific fleet suffered a cerebral thrombosis, or stroke, early last month. A graveside service and burial with military honors are scheduled for Thursday afternoon at Golden Gate National Cemetery in nearby San Bruno. Earlier that day, the body will lie in state for 1 1/2 hours at the chapel of the Treasure Island Naval Base. Chosen After Disaster When Admiral Nimitz took over the Pacific Fleet on Dec. 31, 1941, many of its ships lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, sunk by the Japanese in the surprise attack of Dec. 7 on Hawaii. Without haste--Admiral Nimitz always proceeded with care--he directed the deployment of such carriers and cruises as were left, to hold the line until that moment perhaps two years away, when new battleships could be ready. With Adm. Ernest King, chief of naval operations, President Roosevelt and the Navy's other strategy planners, Admiral Nimitz had to undergo the anguish of being unable to answer the cry of soldiers trapped on Bataan: "Where's the fleet?" When the new battleships, cruisers, carriers and destroyers did arrive, Admiral Nimitz and the Navy cleared the seas of Japanese warships in a series of spectacular naval battles. Eight months after announcing on New Year's Day that 1945 would be a sad year for the Japanese, Admiral Nimitz sat at a table on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri on Sept. 2 to sign the Japanese capitulation. Chester William Nimitz was born on Feb. 24, 1885, in a gingerbread hotel in Fredericksburg, Tex., built by his grandfather, Charles Nimitz, a retired sea captain. The captain had equipped his hotel with a ship's bridge and a pilot house from which he could scan the hills and prairies. Young Chester's father died five months before he was born. In his young years, while staying on occasions with his grandfather, the future admiral heard many tall tales about the sea. Annapolis Second Choice But he dreamed of being a soldier, not a sailor, and while in high school tried for an appointment to West Point. When none was available he took a competitive examination for Annapolis, and was accepted when he was only 15 years old. He left high school to enter the Naval Academy and was not awarded his high school diploma until many years later, when he had retired from active Navy duty. He probably was the only person ever to graduate from high school in the uniform of a fleet admiral. At the Naval Academy, Chester Nimitz excelled in mathematics and in physical exercise. He was nicknamed "Matty" because his proficiency in setting-up exercises, was second only to that of Matty Strohm, the academy's physical education instruction. Chester Nimitz stroked the crew in 1905, the year he graduated. In "The Lucky Bag," the Academy year book, he was described as a man "of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows." After the two years' sea duty required by law, he became an ensign. He said later that he was not overly enthusiastic at his first experience with the sea. "I got frightfully seasick, and must confess to some chilling of enthusiasm for the sea," he said. Ensign Nimitz was a handsome, self-assured young officer, who saw to it that he knew the technical phases of his profession. In his early days in the Navy he commanded an assortment of obsolete minor vessels, and was much pleased when he received command of the old destroyer Stephen Decatur. During a storm, the engineer of the destroyer telephoned from the engine room that the vessel was taking on water rapidly and soon would sink. Lieutenant Nimitz replied soothingly: "Just look on page 84 of 'Barton's Engineering Manual.' It will tell you what to do." The vessel was saved. Won Life Saving Medal In 1912, Lieutenant Nimitz was awarded the Navy's Silver Life Saving Medal for saving a shipmate from drowning. He wore this medal throughout the remainder of his career, along with the five Distinguished Service Medal awards for wartime exploits. In 1913, Lieutenant Nimitz wrote a friend: "On April 9, I had the good sense to marry Catherine Vance Freeman of Wollaston, Mass." Miss Freeman was the daughter of a shipping broker. By way of a honeymoon, the young officer was assigned to study diesel engines in Germany and Belgium for a year. On his return to the United States, he built the Navy's first diesel engine at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. While he was demonstrating the engine his left hand was caught in the mechanism, and one of his fingers was severed. During World War I, Lieutenant Commander Nimitz served as Chief of Staff to Rear Admiral Samuel S. Robinson, commander of the submarine division of the Atlantic Fleet. He saw no battle action. Submarines at that time, he said, were still regarded "as a cross between a Jules Verne fantasy and a whale." Established Reserve Unit From 1926 to 1929, he was assigned to the University of California to establish the first Naval Reserve Officers' training unit. The between-wars period included service on battleships and as a cruiser commander as well as study at various advanced naval schools. By 1938 he was a rear admiral. In 1940, Admiral Nimitz's name was one of two submitted for the post of Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. The other was that of Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, who got the assignment. Admiral Nimitz was in his home in Washington listening to a symphony on the radio when he heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. He picked up his hat and went down to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations for orders. A few days later, Admiral Kimmel was relieved and Admiral Nimitz was on his way to Pearl Harbor. Went to Post as Civilian Admiral Nimitz made the train trip to the West Coast in civilian clothes under an assumed name. Mrs. Nimitz missed her sewing bag, and it was not until many months later that she learned that her husband had used it to carry secret documents dealing with the extent of damage to the fleet in the Pearl Harbor attack. The 65 million square miles of the Pacific became well known to Admiral Nimitz as he contemplated the operations charts that were to carry the story of defeat and victory in the next few years. While waiting for United States yards to turn out the ships he needed, Admiral Nimitz built up his combat teams. These were commanded by Admirals William F. Halsey, Mare A. Mitschner, Richmond K. Turner, Raymond A. Spruance, and Thomas C. Kincaid. Admiral Nimitz handled these complex men with skill and insight, as he did everyone. He flew to Australia to call on General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, to avoid any protocol friction. Once when a sailor from Texas dropped in on him at Pacific Fleet headquarters to chat, Admiral Nimitz sent for a Navy photographer to take a picture. "It seems that his shipmates bet him $20 he wouldn't get to see me," the admiral explained. "I wanted him to have the evidence." When he took over command of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Nimitz was quick to see that a great weakness lay in the lack of forward repair stations and maintenance squadrons. When those squadrons came into being at his insistence, the Navy was prepared to take the fight to the Japanese. The first major Pacific naval battle after Pearl Harbor came on May 8, 1942, in the Coral Sea. This was the world's first naval battle fought entirely in the air, without the carriers even sighting each other or a shot being exchanged between surface vessels. It was adjudged an American success, although the Japanese shot down many United States planes. Battle Saved Australia The aircraft carrier Lexington was lost to Japanese bombs, but the Coral Sea victory saved Australia and New Zealand from invasion. A later victory at Midway removed the Japanese Navy as an immediate threat to Hawaii, the Panama Canal, and the United States. During the first half of 1944, Admiral Nimitz employed the main fighting strength of the Pacific Navy in the central Pacific. The bloody victory at Tarawa was followed by the "great turkey shoot" in the Marianas, where United States aviators downed 402 out of 545 Japanese planes sighted. At his headquarters at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz set an example to his staff by keeping in the peak of physical condition. He swam and took long walks, his pet schnauzer dog trotting along with him. Sometimes at night, he took a drink of bourbon whisky to relax. While waiting for news of a Navy engagement, he would go to the firing range and grimly fire his pistol, or stand in his kitchen and make jelly from prickly pears he grew outside his quarters. Subordinates dutifully tasted the jelly, which he made by a recipe from his boyhood days. In November, 1945, with the war over, Admiral Nimitz became one of the senior naval officers elevated to the newly created rank of Admiral of the Fleet, a rank equivalent to that of General of the Army, or Field Marshal in the service of other countries. Honored by Many Nations After the war, Admiral Nimitz continued to be honored for his brilliant wartime service. He received major decorations from 11 foreign countries, including the British Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Fifteen universities and colleges awarded him honorary degrees. In 1949, Admiral Nimitz was named by the United Nations secretariat to supervise a proposed plebiscite to determine whether Kashmir should become part of India or should be linked to Pakistan. International complications kept the plebiscite commission from functioning. President Harry S. Truman appointed Admiral Nimitz to head a committee on Internal Security and Individual Rights. Because of opposition in Congress the committee never functioned. Although he had commanded 1,000 ships and two million men in World War II, Admiral Nimitz refused to write memoirs. He allowed others to organize birthday parties for him in his later years, but not without grumbling. On his 75th birthday, he was asked if he were looking forward to the celebration. "I'm looking forward to the end of it," he said. "I feel the same way about it as the man who bought himself a small boat. His two happiest days were when he bought it and when he sold it." Besides his wife, he leaves a son, Rear Adm. Chester W. Nimitz Jr., retired, and three daughters, Mrs. Catherine Vance Lay of Newport, R.I., Mary Monson Nimitz, a nun in the Dominican Convent at San Rafael, Calif., and Miss Anne Elizabeth Nimitz of Topanga, Calif.