2) 'Target: Italy The Secret War Against Mussolini 1940-1943' by Roderick Bailey. This is an Official History of Special Operations Executive in Fascist Italy and was published in 2014.

A brilliant account of the attempt to 'set (Italy) ablaze', which was Churchill's ToR for SOE. For clearly explained reasons it was largely a failure until the end, in one particularly odd episode - a captured SOE radio operator acting as a link between the post-Mussolini Italian government and the Allies.

Given contemporary campaigns in many places there is much to learn about operating in a harsh environment, culture and security feature. The Italian security services repeatedly "turned" operations round.

Two episodes fascinated me and only briefly mentioned. A RN submarine in the summer of 1943 landed two Italian NKVD (later KGB) agents on the north-west coast; following an inter-allied agreement to do so and no-one knows what happened to them.

In mid-1943 two Italian saboteurs from the elite San Marco Regiment (Marines) were landed in Libya to attack airfields and were captured - offered in a possible PoW exchange. Following the success of the SAS earlier in attacking the same airfields, although arriving overland. Not the first time they had done this:http://www.feldgrau.com/sanmarco.html

Well reviewed on:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Target-Secr...lini+1940-1943

There is an earlier volume on SOE in Italy after Mussolini's fall.