They were supposed to lose by at least three touchdowns to an undefeated opponent being touted as a Rose Bowl candidate. The eleven Yale starters played all 60 minutes, an uncommon feat never duplicated thereafter in major college football.

The game was played against the background of the Depression. Yet Princeton's Palmer Stadium was full that warm November afternoon for the first time in six years. "I guess people wanted to get their minds off their troubles," said the Yale quarterback, Jerry Roscoe, who threw the winning touchdown pass to Larry Kelley, the latter the first winner of the Heisman Trophy.

How did this game, this success, affect the lives of those eleven men of iron? Who were they? What happened, as World War II descended and snared them?