In July 1943 Benito Mussolini, Italy's warlord and the father of fascism fell from power in a hastily arranged plot, the details of which even today remain controversial. A cabal of generals took the nation's reins and bungled their way toward an accommodation with the Allies. When General Eisenhower announced an armistice with Italy on the evening of 8 September he believed he had struck a deal that included Italian military cooperation against the Germans. In fact, the generals had promised more than they could deliver and Germany's terrible, swift reprisal shattered Italy's confused air...

Black Phoenix is the first in-depth English-language work to cover the operations, organization, and order of battle of the Marina Repubblicana -- the naval force of Benito Mussolini's fascist state that fought alongside Germany from September 1943 to May 1945. Not even in Italian has such a rich and detailed study of this subject ever been published. Black Phoenix tells of the navy created by Prince Junio Valerio Borghese from the kernel of the X MAS Flotilla special attack force. Borghese's navy used small and expendable units to wage asymmetrical warfare and in the process tied down a...