When the first planes began arriving, Henderson Field could barely be described as an airfield. It was an irregularly shaped blob cut out of the island growth, half in and half out of a coconut grove, with a runway that was too short and few revetments to protect the aircraft from shrapnel. Upon landing on Henderson Field on 4 September, the Commanding Officer of Marine Aircraft Group 25, Colonel W. Fiske Marshall described the field by stating it "looked like a Doré drawing of hell."