The Manila Times, Saturday, 27 December 1947
The ships of the German East Asia Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Bernhard Rogge, arrived at Cavite yesterday on a good will visit. It is expected that the flotilla will remain for several days before continuing its exercises on the China Sea.
The Malacañan Palace, Monday, 29 December 1947
Ramon Magsaysay carefully read through the report submitted by the commander of the Olongopo Ordnance Depot regarding the inventory of unused naval artillery, and made frequent notes with which to brief the Minister of Defense. While there were many naval guns in store, not all of them could be made useful in the requisite timeframe; the 305mm guns – for example – would require six months to be made useable at all, and would need perhaps a year’s construction of suitable emplacements – or, as the report stated, they could be turned into heavy railway artillery; which would necessitate serious expansion of the nation’s entire railway network. There were adequate numbers of 155mm guns removed from scrapped cruisers – which could be reworked inside of eight months. This was more promising, but the many 100mm guns were light enough that they could be available within six months. Still, such emplacements would be static, and he doubted that the Chinese would be so obliging as to only land where defenses were at their strongest. What he needed were options.