Thursday, June 6, marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the date Allied air and ground forces swept across French beaches in an attack that helped defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II. Alan Allport, Dr. Walter Montgomery and Marian Gruber Professor of History, provides context of the moment.

D-Day, Allport tells The Hill, marked an enormously successful example of cooperation between an Allied alliance able to mobilize its own resources to miraculous effect, while also representing American commitment to the defense of Western Europe.

“But as we all know, in the last few years there has been some increasing questions about whether that commitment will continue. It is an interesting moment to kind of pause and to reflect upon that,” he says.

In his commentary with CBS News (beginning at 6:30) during a ceremony in Normandy, Allport says, “We are getting further and further away, obviously, from the lived experience and this is probably what makes today so remarkable is that this will be...certainly the last occasion in which there are any significant number of veterans who can be present.

I am always fairly optimistic about this kind of thing. I think that there are reasons Americans will continue to return to the memory of World War II. I think it is an extraordinary moment in the country's history,” says Allport.

“Just as there have been other events in American history which have faded from personal memory it doesn't mean to say that they don't still reverberate very strongly. I am confident that even though younger people who don't have any personal memory of this or even really of people who were involved, I still think that they will be able to draw a great deal from this,” he says.

Allport was also interviewed for the Forbes article, “The largest naval invasion in history was on the verge of collapse. What if D-Day failed?”

In a Q&A with SU News, Allport further explains the significance of D-Day and its impact generations later: “What if D-Day Had Never Happened?: The Enduring Significance of the Allied Invasion of Europe 80 Years On.”