Roosevelt to aviator Charles Lindbergh, were leading players in that ferocious battle in which the stakes couldn't have been higher.

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In a particularly ferocious battle in Najaf, Iraq, in 2007, he recalled in a military article how U.S. fighters had to resort to World War II-style tactics to persevere.

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Whatever the true figure, it was a ferocious battle.

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The Battle of Iwo Jima was so ferocious that afterward the Americans estimated they would lose a million men if they attempted to take the Japanese mainland.

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