The Red Sea Flotilla was a unit of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina Italia) based in Massawa, Eritrea, when Massawa was part of Italian East Africa. In World War II, the Red Sea Flotilla was active against the British Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet from Italy's declaration of war on 10 June 1940 until the fall of Massawa on 8 April 1941.
The location of the squadron meant it was isolated from the main Italian bases in the Mediterranean by distance and enemy dispositions. British capture of Massawa and other Italian ports in the region ultimately ended the Italian naval presence in the region in April 1941.
... From 10 June 1940, the Regia Marina Red Sea Flotilla, based in Massawa, Eritrea, posed a potential threat to Allied shipping crossing the Red Sea between the Indian Ocean ... In August 1940, the threat to Allied passage of the Red Sea was increased after the Italian conquest of British Somaliland ... and Commonwealth forces launched a counterattack in East Africa and the threat posed by the Red Sea Flotilla disappeared when Italian East Africa fell ...
... Crete is the largest island in Greece and the second largest in the eastern Mediterranean Sea (after Cyprus) ... It is located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea separating the Aegean from the Libyan Sea ...
... to Asia and back, and from northern Africa to the Baltic Sea ... An important raw material, amber was transported from the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, Greece, the Black ... Republic and Slovakia) to the head of the Adriatic Sea (modern Gulf of Venice) ...
... Blair, Clay (1996) ... Hitler's U-Boat War The Hunters 1939-1942 ...
... As a result, marine channels, navigable rivers and sea crossings formed the trade routes of historic and ancient civilisations ... For example, the Mediterranean Sea was known to the Romans as the inner sea because the Roman empire spread around its coasts ... Wars were fought at sea over the control of important resources ...
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or sea:
“The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894)
“It is the sea that whitens the roof.
The sea drifts through the winter air.
It is the sea that the north wind makes.
The sea is in the falling snow.
This gloom is the darkness of the sea.”
—Wallace Stevens (18791955)