During the Battle of Peleliu Island, Japanese soldiers, along with a Japanese tank unit, attempted to blow up an American position occupying an airfield. The Japanese soldiers and tanks were destroyed when the Americans counterattacked.

　　During the Battle of Peleliu Island in the Pacific War, U.S. forces made a second forced landing at 8:30 a.m. on September 15, 1944. Japanese soldiers, along with tank units of the Japanese 14th Division, aimed to blow up the positions of the U.S. 1st Marine Division and Company G, 1st Marine Regiment, which were attempting to occupy the airfield. Conversely, the Japanese soldiers and tanks were destroyed in a counterattack by the Americans. The U.S. forces used several times as many men and material resources for the second landing than for the first. The Americans landed on the southwestern edge of the airfield at great cost. Accompanied by tanks, they invaded to the vicinity of the southeastern end of the airfield.

　　The Americans used their 37-meter guns to fire on the Japanese tank columns assaulting the vast airfield. The Americans used anti-tank guns to eliminate the Japanese tanks. They also fired a volley of firebombs at Japanese soldiers trying to escape from the tanks, burning them to death. Burned to a crisp, the bodies of the Japanese tank crews tumbled to the ground.

　 The American forces that landed on Peleliu Island aborted the first forced landing on September 15 at 6:15 a.m. and temporarily withdrew from the island after 8:00 a.m. The Japanese forces made three assaults on September 15, losing about one-third of a Japanese soldier for each assault. On the beaches, the battle became a white-knuckle battle so intricate that it was difficult to tell where the positions were. The soldiers of the U.S. Army's 1st Marine Division who landed on Peleliu Island faced an unexpected threat from the onslaught of Japanese soldiers hiding in positions on the beach. The Americans assumed that the Japanese positions had been destroyed by carpet bombing prior to the landing on Peleliu Island. Japanese soldiers charged the U.S. forces one after another as if they were rising from the depths of the earth.

  　On the western coastline of Peleliu Island, which they called Orange Beach, Japanese troops sniped at the palm forests, confronting the American troops who had landed the first time. The Japanese forces hid in cave positions hollowed out of the rising coral mountains and then fired on them simultaneously. American soldiers found it difficult to advance or retreat, and were pinned to their positions on the front lines, suffering heavy casualties. After the Battle of Peleliu, the U.S. military named the west coast of the first landing Orange Beach. The blood of the U.S. soldiers turned the white coral beach orange. For the second forced landing, the Americans landed one after another from the southwestern edge of the airfield, bypassed the Japanese positions, and attacked from the direction of Tianshan.