On Peale, with the departure of Captain Godbold and the Marines of Battery D for the island’s command post on Wake, First Lieutenant Kessler became strongpoint commander. At dawn, he scanned the other islets. On Wilkes, he discerned Japanese flags whipping in the breeze--one particularly large one flying where Battery F had been (flags which Platt’s men would remove shortly thereafter). Kessler reported his observations to Devereux, who had not heard a word from Platt since around 0300. The report prompted Devereux to fear that Wilkes had fallen. As he scanned Wake at about 0600, however, Kessler observed the masts of what proved to be _Patrol Boat No. 32_, which was aground on the south shore of Wake. Kessler requested permission to fire at the ship. His request was approved, but he was admonished to avoid firing into friendly troops. Kessler ordered his 5-inchers to open fire. The first salvo clipped off the mainmast. Then Battery B’s gunners lowered their sights to hit the ship itself. They could see only the funnel tops over the intervening island. Twenty-five minutes later, at 0625, the command post ordered Battery B to cease fire, their target having been “demolished.” Twenty minutes later, Kessler observed four “battleships, or super heavy cruisers” (probably the heavy cruisers _Aoba_, _Kinugasa_, _Furutaka_, and _Kako_) off Heel Point, moving westward but remaining well out of range. Those ships lay 10 kilometers offshore and shelled the atoll, but achieved little success. Additional Japanese forces were headed for Wake. At 0612, off to the northwest, _Soryu_ turned into the wind and launched 12 planes. The day’s air operations had begun. In less than an hour, the planes were over the island. Throughout the battle, Major Devereux had, as well as he could, kept the island commander informed of the progress of the assault. While the Marines, assisted by the sailors and civilians, had been attempting to stem the tide, most of the news which trickled into Cunningham’s command post boded ill. At 0652, he sent out a message reflecting the situation as he knew it: “Enemy on island. Several ships plus transport moving in. Two DD aground.” That was at 1032, 22 December 1941, on Pearl Harbor. It was to be the last message from the Wake Island defenders. At Pearl Harbor, at about the time that Cunningham was sending that last message, Vice Admiral Pye had reached making a decision. He concluded that if Task Force 14 encountered anything but a weaker Japanese force, the battle would be fought on Japanese terms while within range of shore-based planes and with American forces having only enough fuel for two days of high speed steaming. Like Brown, Pye believed that a damaged ship was a lost ship, especially 2,000 miles from Pearl Harbor. The risk, he believed, was too great. He ordered the recall of Task Forces 14 and 11, and directed Task Force 8 to cover the retirement.