Authorities say they quickly killed two of the gunmen, but two others continued to fire machine guns in the extended battle in Pul-i-Alam, Witnesses say U.S.military helicopters were part of the response force, and one aircraft fired a rocket into a multi-story building which the insurgents had seized, used to launch their attack and had rigged with explosives.

VOA: standard.2009.08.10

When the machine guns opened fire, American soldiers began moving up San Juan Hill.

VOA: special.2010.07.15

He taught himself to be a pilot. During World War II, he designed a machine used to train military aircraft crews to fire guns at enemy aircraft.

VOA: special.2009.01.14

Then Romesha and his soldiers came up with another plan: Go outside and lay down heavy fire from the machine guns as an airstrike targeted a village nearby that militants were using as a staging area, giving the three soldiers -- Larson, Mace and Sgt.

CNN: An American hero: The uncommon valor of Clint Romesha

The Tarawa calamity was already a Pacific legend: how naval intelligence, relying on obsolete charts, had miscalculated the tides so flagrantly that the Marine troops in their landing vessels were forced to disembark on coral reefs and then wade ashore for hundreds of yards, exposed to killing fire from Japanese machine guns.

NEWYORKER: Rat Beach

They returned fire with 50-caliber machine guns, they also returned fire with their M-16's -- Marines pointing out of the top firing, but not indiscriminantly, that is something the Marines point out -- only when they were fired upon and only when they could see the flashes, did they fire back.

CNN: Martin Savidge: 'Pitched battle that went on and on'