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At 1000, 26 December, the 4th Marines began to move to Corregidor. More than 400 Marines of the 1st Separate Marine Battalion were loaded on board lighters and taken across the channel. They were then transported by narrow gauge railway to Middleside Barracks. The forward echelon of the Headquarters and Service Companies and the 2d Battalion loaded on a minesweeper and lighters just after darkness the following day. Shortly after midnight on 27 December, the 336 Marines and their equipment were completely unloaded on Corregidor.

Two days later at 2010, the 1st Battalion and the remainder of the regiment completed the transfer to Corregidor's North Dock. A 1st Battalion Marine private busily carried a box of .30-caliber ammunition weighing more than 96 pounds to the dock. Lieutenant Colonel Beecher stepped in front of the sweating Marine and took the box out of his hands. He then dropped the ammunition off the dock into the water. The private stared dumbfounded as Beecher informed him, "You're carrying blanks; we are not using them anymore." The 4th took six months of rations for 2,000 men, 10 units of fire for all weapons, a two-year supply of summer clothing, and medicines and equipment for a 100-bed hospital, to Corregidor.