During the Battle of Tarawa in the Pacific War, U.S. Marines burst a flamethrower at Japanese soldiers who had ventured inland. The bodies of the Japanese soldiers were instantly engulfed in flames, and the bodies of the burned to death Japanese soldiers were scattered on the sandy beach.

 　　At the Battle of Tarawa in the Pacific War, the U.S. Marines were the first to deploy flame-throwing tanks. The flamethrower exploded at a Japanese soldier as he darted inland. The Japanese soldiers' bodies were instantly engulfed in flames. The bodies of Japanese soldiers burned to death by the flamethrowers during the Battle of Tarawa were scattered on the sandy beach. On the desolate island, the corpses lay on the beach covered in scorched earth and blood, and the air was filled with coral dust and the stench of death.

　On November 20, 1943, some 35,000 American troops launched an amphibious assault on Betio Island and Makin Atoll in Tarawa Atoll. The Makin Atoll was weakly defended and casualties were low. The fortified and intensive defense of Betio Island was accompanied by 76 hours of disastrous casualties, dubbed the Battle of Tarawa, and on the morning of November 20, following naval bombardment, the U.S. Marines approached the north shore of Betio Island in transport boats. Encountering low tide, they abandoned their landing craft on the reefs surrounding Betio Island. They were forced to walk to the beach under heavy fire from the Japanese. Once on the beach, they struggled to establish a safe landing base beyond the breakwater, and by November 20 they had secured the westernmost tip of Betio Island and the center of the northern shore.

　On November 21, American forces pushed onto the airstrip in the center of Betio Island. The largest securement was achieved on the western shore, and on November 22 the Marines borrowed two Sherman tanks and began an eastward advance. A nest of Japanese machine guns impeded the advance. Continued U.S. incursions from the north and west pushed the remaining Japanese defenders into a small area east of the central airstrip; on the night of November 22, the Japanese rallied for a banzai-style counterattack against the Marines, but the American lines held.

　In the early morning hours of November 23, the Japanese executed their second, third, and fourth banzai assaults. The Marines again pushed the Japanese back. The Japanese banzai assaults were the last organized effort of the Japanese forces. The only remaining Japanese resistance on Betio Island was a small position to the east. The Marines, supported by tanks, aircraft, artillery, and bulldozers, methodically destroyed the Japanese defensive positions. By early afternoon, the Americans had reached the eastern tip of Betio Island and declared it safe. Isolated groups of Japanese troops continued to appear in the weeks following the battle; with the exception of 147 prisoners of war (most of them Korean laborers), the Japanese garrison was wiped out and crippled. The U.S. forces suffered approximately 1,113 killed or missing in action and 2,296 wounded in action.

　Tarawa Atoll, a ring of coral reefs within the Gilbert Islands, an area consisting of many small islands in the southwest Pacific, was fortified in 1943 by about 5,000 Japanese troops who had built a strong fortification on the three-mile-long, 1,000-yard-wide atoll. Betio Island, the largest island in Tarawa Atoll, was home to a Japanese airstrip and was also garrisoned by most of the Japanese forces in the Gilbert Islands; by November 1943, more than 2,500 Japanese soldiers, about 1,000 Japanese construction workers, and 1,200 Korean forced laborers had defended Betio Island. Defensive bunkers and trench nets were placed inside Betio Island.