At 0145, however, a report came into the detachment commander’s command post, telling of an enemy landing in progress at Toki Point, at the tip of Peale. Devereux alerted the battalion. Kessler, in the meantime, dispatched a patrol up the lagoon beach toward the PanAm facility, which met a patrol from Battery D. Neither had anything to report. On Wilkes, Captain Platt directed Battery L to move the men of two 5-inch gun sections (equivalent to two rifle squads) to the shore of the lagoon, west of the area of the new channel being dredged across the island. The rest of the men of the battery--fire controlmen and headquarters men under McAlister, who had established his command post near the searchlight section of the battery--moved into positions they had readied along the south shore of Wilkes, between McKinstry’s Battery F and the new channel. Kessler, whom Devereux had requested to confirm or deny the accuracy of the information regarding the landing, reported that there was no landing in progress, but that he had seen the lights offshore. Cunningham, at 0145, radioed the Commandant, 14th Naval District, reporting “gunfire between ships to northeast of island.” Wake thus alerted, Second Lieutenant Arthur A. Poindexter, at Camp 1 with the mobile reserve (predominantly supply and administration Marines and 15 sailors under Boatswain’s Mate First Class James E. Barnes), believed Peale to be threatened. He exercised initiative and entrucked eight Marines and with four .30-caliber machine guns. Reporting his intention to the detachment commander, Poindexter and that portion of his mobile reserve sped past the airfield toward Peale. It was nearing Devereux’s command post when he ordered it intercepted. The major retained Poindexter’s little force where it was, pending clarification of the situation. The bad weather that prevented the Marines from seeing their foes likewise hindered the Japanese. Shortly before 0200, _Special Naval Landing Force_ troops clambered down into the medium landing craft designated to land on Wilkes and Wake. Four landing craft were launched some 3,000 to 4,000 meters offshore, but in the squalls and long swells they experienced difficulty keeping up with _Patrol Boat No. 32_ and _Patrol Boat No. 33_ as they churned on a northeasterly course, headed for the beach. The landing craft designated to follow _No. 32_ lost sight of her in the murky, gusty darkness. At about 0230, Marines on Peacock Point detected the two patrol boats, which appeared to them only as dark shapes as they made for the reef by the airstrip. Then, the two ships ground gently ashore on the coral. The Japanese naval infantrymen slipped over the side into the surf, struggled ashore, and sprinted across the coral for cover.