When war was declared in September 1939 the north Queensland infantry battalions were mobilised and marched into encampments at Townsville Showgrounds and Kissing Point Barracks for training and guard duty; the existing facilities and grounds at Kissing Point being occupied by the 26th Infantry Battalion, 11th Brigade of the Citizen Militia Force. In 1940 the Queensland Main Roads Commission built permanent foundations and engine rooms for two searchlights at the Kissing Point battery (marked on a 1948 site place as being in the immediate vicinity of the gun emplacements) and two new guns were installed. Few changes were made at the site until after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and the Malay Peninsula in 1941 and Singapore had fallen the following year. Townsville would become a major supply and deployment centre for Australasian and US troops and the RAAF aerodrome in the suburb of Garbutt became one of the largest air bases in the Pacific.