Battle of Rennell Island
In hindsight, some historians have faulted the Americans—especially Patch and Admiral William Halsey, commander of Allied forces in the South Pacific—for not taking advantage of their ground, aerial, and naval superiority to prevent the successful Japanese evacuation of most of their surviving forces from Guadalcanal. Halsey had just been recently repulsed at the Battle of Rennell Island. Patch and Harmon's insistence on taking Mount Austen has been cited as one of the factors that delayed the American's main attack to the west, giving the 17th Army a chance to escape. Said Merrill B. Twining of the Japanese forces deployed on and around Mount Austen, "Theoretically these Japanese did offer a threat to our major force advancing westward along the coast, but as a practical matter these isolated groups were composed of sick and starving men unable to do anything more than die in place. Under the circumstances disclosed by subsequent events, it is obvious that Mt. Austen was just part of the scenery and of no significant import to either of the antagonists."