Battle for Henderson Field
As a lieutenant colonel, he commanded 3rd Battalion, 164th Infantry during the Battle for Henderson Field in the Guadalcanal Campaign. His regiment, part of the U.S. Army's Americal Division, had only just arrived on Guadalcanal as an emergency reinforcement and would become the first U.S. Army unit to see action during World War II. In the middle of a dark and rainy night on 24 October 1942, under close combat conditions, he and Lt. Col. Chesty Puller, commander of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, made the decision to place Hall's men among the understrength Marines rather take their own place on the 7500-ft. line.