On the morning of 2 May 1942, the Japanese opened a 2,600 round barrage against the battery. At 1627 hrs, with the battery crews in action,  a 240mm round penetrated the centre magazine, detonating a massive explosion of 40 tons of explosives that utterly destroyed the battery, leaving a large crater where the magazine formerly was.

Remarkably, Captain Davis, seeing the Japanese 240mm shells begin to bracket Geary,  anticipated the explosion and had ordered his men to take cover in the far right magazine, and only 6 were killed, and the same number wounded.  Large pieces of concrete and munitions were hurled as far as a mile away, killing another 2 and wounding a further 31.   The force of the explosion hurled one of the 10 ton barrels over 150 yards on to the nearby golf course.