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 sea in two main subregions: the Western Mediterranean, with an area of about 850 thousand km (330 thousand mi); and the Eastern Mediterranean, of about 1.65 million km (640 thousand mi). A characteristic of the coastal Mediterranean are submarine karst springs or s, which discharge pressurised groundwater into the coastal seawater from below the surface; the discharge water is usually fresh, and sometimes may be thermal. The Mediterranean basin and sea system was established by the ancient African-Arabian continent colliding with the Eurasian continent. As Africa-Arabia drifted northward, it closed over the ancient Tethys Ocean which had earlier separated the