Friday, December 18, 1942. Ciano dispatched to Hitler.

Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and a prominent figure in the Italian government, was dispatched to the Wolf's Lair with a message from Mussolini urging Hitler to make a separate peace with the Soviet Union.

Ciano only rose to power via his marriage to Edda Mussolini, but starting in 1939 he began to pull away from the dictator over the war, which he opposed.  He was sidelined by being appointed Ambassador to the Holy See in 1943.  He voted with the Fascist Grand Council to remove Mussolini in July 1943, but was removed from his office by the government, after which he fled to Germany.  The Germans in turn handed him over to Mussolini's rebel fascist Italian Social Republic, which would have him executed.

Ciano's diaries are an important source of inside information regarding the Italian fascist government as well as the Axis alliance. 

The British prevailed at El Agheila.

Friday, December 11, 1942. Large and small boats.

Today in World War II History—December 11, 1942: “Cockleshell Heroes” Raid: British commandos who had landed in France from a submarine on Dec. 7 and canoed up the Gironde River, damage six ships in Bordeaux.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The Italian navy sank two Allied cargo ships, and damaged three others, in a manned torpedo raid on Algiers.

All in all, the Italian raid was more successful than the Royal Marine one on the same day.

The Battle of El Agheila commenced, which saw the British launch an operation to outflank the retreating Afrika Korps, which was both invading and withdrawing into Tunisia.  

The town of El Agheila, Libya, had been the site of an Italian concentration camp earlier in the war which had confined 10,000 Bedouin in poor conditions.

Bedouins confined at El Agheila.