The corpses and remains of Japanese soldiers were dragged out of the Japanese tanks that had been aborted at the mouth of the Matanikau River, and American soldiers toyed with the corpses, smearing them with mud and making teeth out of tobacco.

　　Dragging the corpses and remains of Japanese soldiers out of an aborted Japanese tank at the mouth of the Matanikau River during the Battle of Guadalcanal Island, American soldiers toyed with the corpses, smearing them with mud and making teeth out of tobacco. Marines displayed the heads and bones of Japanese tank crews on a destroyed Japanese tank. The tanks were torched with flamethrowers, and U.S. Marines propped up and toyed with the severed and burned heads of the Japanese. Trapped inside the blast furnace of a tank battle, Japanese soldiers were burned alive. Through penetration into tanks, he was cremated alive as the tanks he believed would protect him.

　After American troops landed on August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines invaded as far east as the Matanikau River in the Battle of Guadalcanal Island in the Pacific War. During the early months of the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Matanikau River formed the western edge of the U.S. military perimeter on Guadalcanal, and the Japanese occupied the western side of the river and launched an offensive to the east against the American lines.

　On the evening of October 23, 1942, the Japanese launched an artillery bombardment followed by an attack by an infantry regiment supported by tanks against the American perimeter along the Matanikau River. Defending the eastern side of the Matanikau River was the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, U.S. By the early morning of October 24, 1942, the Japanese attack had failed and Japanese tanks attempting to cross the sandbar at the river mouth were wiped out and abandoned by American artillery fire.

　During the night of October 31, 1942, U.S. Marines crossed the Matanikau River and established an outpost on the west bank. The U.S. Army's 1st Engineer Battalion hastened the construction of three footbridges across the Matanikau River, which were completed by November 1, 1942. Subsequently, the bridges were widened and improved; in early 1943, a single-lane bridge for automobiles was built inland from the mouth of the river.

　Matanikau Sandbar was located east of the mouth of the Matanikau River; on October 24, 1942, seven Army Type 97 medium tank Chi-Ha vehicles of the 1st Independent Tank Regiment of the Japanese Army moved east, but were rendered inoperable by the Marines. Six of the tanks were subsequently dismantled by the Marines to prevent their use as defensive positions by the Japanese; the seventh, a Type 97 medium tank Chi-Ha, was partially submerged.