Current Events November 20, 1943; U. S. NAVY CONTROLS 2 OCEANS:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY NOVEMBER 20, 1943:

 Usually reliable quarters in Spain received reports from France today that Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, 87-year-old chief of state, had resigned but Pierre Laval and t h e Germans were urging him t o reconsider
his sudden decision.

 THE HEAVIEST AIR offensive of the war against Germany, in which the Allies were delivering bombs at the rate of 100 tons an hour, went into its third day today with the royal air force attacking a chemical plant outside Cologne.

 The navy considers itself master in two oceans—in the south Pacific where naval forces are trying to lure the Japanese fleet into a showdown battle, and in the Atlantic where the U-boat campaign is said to be facing disaster

      The Sheboygan Press
                         SHEBOYGAN, WIS. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1943.

Nazis Attack Along Ukraine Front
Chemical Center
Is Hammered By
Bombers Of RAF


            THE RACINE JOURNAL-TIMES
                        RACINE, WIS., SATURDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 20, 1943.

 Crisis in Vichy; Resignation of Petain Reported
 LONDON*.—(UP)— 
Usually reliable quarters in Spain received reports from France today that Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, 87-year-old chief of state, had resigned but Pierre Laval and t h e Germans were urging him t o reconsider
his sudden decision.
Madrid relayed what appeared to be the most authentic of several reports regarding a government crisis in
Vichy, several of them saying that Petain had stepped down and some that he had been imprisoned in a French villa. Francois Pietro. French ambassador to Madrid, was understood to have been out of direct communication with Vichy for the last -48 hours.
Hence he was unable to shed any light on thc uneasy situation a Madrid dispatch said.
                                                                    Crisis at Climax.
Spanish quarters  receiving French advices described as usually trustworthy said that a crisis had been brewing in Vichy -tor some time, and now appeared to have come to a climax.
They regarded Petain as always contemptuous of Laval, the chief of government long regarded as the actual leader of the Vichy French.

 Allies'Heaviest Air Offensive
In Third Day; Germans Re-take
Zhitomir Rail Hub From Russians
 (By United Press)
THE HEAVIEST AIR offensive of the war against Germany, in which the Allies were delivering bombs at the rate of 100 tons an hour, went into its third day today with the royal air force attacking a chemical plant outside Cologne.
Aground, the Allies scored thenfirstdefinite gains in a week on the Italian front and the red army fought to-repair the damage to its Kiev salient, nicked in the tip by a German counter-assault which pushed the Russians out of Zhitomir.
                                                             British Lose 5 Bombers.
Twenty-four hours =»fter the royal air force struck the hardest aerial blow of the war at Germany
with a double-barreled assault on Berlin and Ludwigshafen, it sent another large fleet of fourmotored
bombers to the Reich to pound the I. G. Farben chemical plant at Leverkusen, outside Cologne.
The plant turns out the components of poison gas. The raid touched off speculation on the possibility that the British bombs may have burst gas containers and sent lethal clouds swirling through the Rhine valley.

 Navy Is Master
Of 2 Oceans,
Chiefs Indicate
 WASHINGTON. —(UP)---
The navy considers itself master in two oceans—in the south Pacific where naval forces are trying to lure the Japanese fleet into a showdown battle, and in the Atlantic where the U-boat campaign is said to be facing disaster.
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, commenting on the new daring raids on the Tarawa, Gilbert and Marshall islands in the Japanese central Pacific stronghold, complained to a news conference
that, "No Jap ships are found." He said the navy has not encountered any units of the mikado's fleet since Nov. 2.
                                                        "More Than Adequate."
"Our ships haven't been at anchor, either," he added. "One year ago we were facing a series of crises on Guadalcanal. Since then the Solomons have been swept clean of Jnps. "Our sea and air forces in the south and southwest Pacific are rrore than adequate to meet any opposition the Japs might throw at us."
The navy's picture in the Atlantic is also bright. Rear Admiral Francis S. Low. chief of staff of the 10th fleet, indicated the German U-boat campaign is facing the same disastrous fate it met during the latter part of the last war.