During World War I, Australian forces fought along with the British in Europe. Years later, in the Second World War, between 1940 and 1942, Australian forces again supported the United Kingdom, this time in the Middle East; after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Australia played a major role in the Pacific theater. Following World War II, the Australian government embarked on a massive immigration program to fill the jobs created by a booming war economy. The success of this program radically altered Australia's demographic composition. Before the war, almost all Australians traced their ancestry to the British Isles, but between 1947 and 1961, nearly half the new immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe, increasing the population of Australia from 7.5 million in 1947, to 11 million in 1966. The increase was due either to immigration or to the children born of immigrants. As expected, with an exploding economy and population, the development...