visibility to at least , making a close approach to the beach impossible." The Puerto Rico Phase in the reconnaissance landing was however quite different. After sunset in the darkness, the submerged submarines navigated to within the shoreline, following channels until it was able to reach within from the beach of Ponce Playa. This made it easy to discharge the patrols successfully to reach the beachhead without detection from the "enemy" zone of the Army National Guard. Although one was subsequently captured at the night of the landing. It was again concluded that the landing force of the main landing parties were still in dispute over the landing craft. Modified fishing craft were tested and, although superior to standard naval boats in beaching and speed, their exposed rudders and screws were wont to dig in during retracting from the beach. The tests in reconnaissance added that small, inflatable air rafts were feasible in transporting reconnaissance teams onto the beaches. However, both the landing teams and recon teams agreed that communications was still a major obstacle in achieving the total success of the Fleet Landing Exercises. Means of communications were important to transmit information quickly and not waiting for it to be relayed once the troops had landed for it to be available for those who would need it. FLEX 5 The Fleet Landing Exercise Number 5 commenced on January through March in 1938 and 1939 on the islands of Culebra and Vieques. These exercises again were only Navy-Marine Corps cooperation as the army no longer participated. The Marine Corps successfully landed amphibious reconnaissance patrols on Vieques when two such patrols disembarked from the during exercises from 13 January to 13 March 1939. The Navy reclassified Manley as a miscellaneous auxiliary (AG 28). After a few weeks of hasty work in the New York Navy Yard, the ship served as a transport for Marine units in the Caribbean. In the fall of 1939 Manley went back into the yards for a more extensive conversion. Workers removed all torpedo tubes, one gun, two boilers, and their smokestacks thus creating a hold amidships for cargo and troops. Again, the Navy reclassified the Manley to a destroyer-transport class, APD-1. The Chief of Naval Operations made conversion a priority so the ship would be available for FLEX 6 in early 1940. The inserted reconnaissance patrols would deflate their experimental rubber boats upon reaching the shore