Did a search on USA Memorial Day and found the historic description from the USA embassy in Sweden.

I put it up as unlike Alan most Aussie are probably not aware of the day so a bit of history to back the day is not a bad idea.

I've always thought a statue to Douglas MacArthur should be erected in Canberra. If it wasn't for his refusal to allow the Pacific to be relegated to second place after Europe, we may well been speaking Japanese in Australia for a number of years. Though I have a feeling the Japanese might have had a hard fight of it after landing. Australia is a long way away from Japan and the continent is huge, the terrain can be unfriendly and much different to a lot of the Pacific and Asia where their successes had been prior.