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 Middle Sea'. In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was "Baḥr al-Rūm(ī)" ( or }) 'the Sea of the Romans' or 'the Roman Sea'. At first, that name referred to only the Eastern Mediterranean, but it was later extended to the whole Mediterranean. Other Arabic names were "Baḥr al-šām(ī)" () 'the Sea of Syria' and "Baḥr al-Maghrib" () 'the Sea of the West'. In Turkish, it is the "Akdeniz" 'the White Sea'; in Ottoman, ﺁق دكيز, which sometimes means only the Aegean Sea. The origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine