Many contributed to this remarkable reversal: the unsupported Marines who clung to Henderson Field after the naval disaster off Savo…Colonel Edson’s 700 weary men who hurled back Kawaguchi’s 2100 from Bloody Ridge…the overworked destroyers and cruisers that took on Admiral Yamamoto’s battlewagons…the little band of fighter pilots who crushed the great air armadas sent down from the north…the coordinated sea and air effort that ultimately derailed Admiral Tanaka’s Tokyo Express.
They all did their bit, but none played a larger part than Commander Feldt’s handful of Coastwatchers, together with the intriguing assortment of missionaries, local people, and natives who helped them. Their numbers were small -- six teleradios behind enemy lines in June 1942; still only 14 a year later -- but their contribution was enormous…
Admiral Halsey summed it up well when he later observed, ‘The Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the Pacific.’”
(Walter Lord, Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons)
