During the Battle of Peleliu Island in the Pacific War, American forces attacked a Japanese Type 95 light tank with a flamethrower. It was damaged, and the crew was burned to death and scattered around the area. An American soldier performed an autopsy on the charred corpse of a Japanese soldier.

　　During the Battle of Peleliu Island in the Pacific War (September 15-November 27, 1944), American forces attacked a Japanese Type 95 light tank with a flamethrower. The Japanese Type 95 tank was damaged, and the bodies of its crew, burned to death by the flamethrower, were scattered around the tank. An American soldier autopsied a charred Japanese soldier's body from the side of the tank.

　The Japanese turned to tactics that would delay the Americans and inflict maximum casualties and damage. Utilizing and camouflaging the natural terrain, heavily fortified positions were built on reverse slopes and masked terrain that favored the defending Japanese forces. The battle over the Japanese fortifications, bunkers, and tunnel complexes epitomized the Battle of Peleliu Island. The Americans, in a siege situation, isolated nearly all of their strongpoints from adjacent positions and destroyed them in hand-to-hand combat, using flamethrowers and satchel-charged explosives. Peleliu Island, which the U.S. forces recaptured at great cost, did not play a significant role in the final years of the Pacific War.

　American flamethrower units primarily used flame tractors to neutralize Japanese caves, pillboxes, and dugouts on Peleliu Island and to burn those hiding from the battlefield. Japanese soldiers hiding in defended positions were often caught by arching streams of burning, thick fuel rods that struck the reverse slope. The flamethrowers moved ahead of the tanks, even ahead of the infantry, and when they reached the hill and the attack slowed, the tanks and infantry supported the flamethrowers. High-pressure hoses were used to carry the flames to targets out of range of the flamethrowers. Flamethrowers newly fitted with high-pressure hoses achieved a range of about 55 meters and were all used in the subsequent Battle of Okinawa.

  In the Battle of Peleliu Island, U.S. military casualties included approximately 1,336 Marines killed in action, 5,450 wounded in action, and 1,393 dead of the 81st Infantry Division (of which approximately 208 were killed in action). An estimated 10,695 Japanese casualties were killed in action, and another 301 were taken prisoner of war.