Most of the players would don military uniforms during 1942. Wallace Wade enlisted after the game ended and encouraged his players to follow suit. Of the 31 players on the Beaver Express, 29 would serve in World War II. Both teams lost halfbacks in the Pacific Theater in 1942, Walter Griffith of Duke and Everett Smith of Oregon State. Al Hoover of Duke lost his life on Peleliu in 1944 after diving on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. The Blue Devils' Bob Nanni was killed at Iwo Jima. Jack Yoshihara listened to the game on NBC radio. He tried to enlist but was repeatedly denied. Once Japanese-American internment camps began popping up in the Western United States, he sold his prized 1941 Chevrolet. He spent most of 1942 in an internment camp in Idaho. Tommy Prothro, who was later the head coach of Oregon State and UCLA in successive Rose Bowls, played quarterback for the Blue Devils. Prothro's backup, Charlie Haynes, and Oregon State left guard, Frank Parker (himself the starting quarterback on the 1940 Beaver team), were rifle platoon leaders in different companies, sailing from Africa to Italy in 1944, when the two recognized each other. In the fall, Parker found Haynes with a fist-sized wound in his chest during the Arno Valley Campaign. Haynes had been injured 17 hours before and believed that he was going to die. Parker saved Haynes' life by carrying him on his back to an abandoned farmhouse for medical attention. In 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge, Oregon State right tackle, Stan Czech, shared some coffee and food with a fellow soldier who had not eaten in two days. Czech soon recognized the soldier as Duke coach, Wallace Wade. Czech was taken prisoner days later and interned at OFLAG XIII-B. He managed to escape but was recaptured the next day and interned at a prison deeper inside Germany. By the time he was freed, after nearly six months in captivity, Czech had lost . Duke Stadium, the site of the game, was later named Wallace Wade Stadium in honor of the Duke coach. Oregon State's Gene Gray flew more than 30 bombing missions over Germany and continued to serve after the war. In 1948, his plane crashed after a flameout on takeoff in the jungles of Panama. He later likened his body to burnt steak. He had severe burns over most of his body and both his arms had to be amputated. Gray, whose arms hauled in the touchdown catch which proved the deciding margin, wound up with no arms at all.