Red Sea Flotilla other Italian ports in the region ended the Italian naval presence in the region in April 1941. The Red Sea Flotilla was not used aggressively by the Italians, the British viewed it as a potential threat to Allied convoys travelling East African waters between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. This was a vital route for British forces operating from Egypt. The Red Sea Flotilla was especially well situated to attack convoys headed from the Gulf of Aden through the Red Sea to the Suez Canal, after the Mediterranean was closed to Allied merchant ships, which had to take
Mediterranean Sea or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as "Baḥr-i Safīd", which was also used in later Ottoman Turkish. It is probably the origin of the colloquial Greek Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in Classical Antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north (explaining the name Black Sea), yellow or blue to east, red to south (i.e., the Red Sea), and "white" to west. This would explain both the Turkish "Akdeniz" (White Sea) and the Arab nomenclature described above.