Was Air Power decisive in the two battles of El Alamein?

[EwenS]

Also the many RAF bombers used in the anti-shipping role in the theatre, Beauforts, Beaufighters etc.
Would the Swordfish have been removed from torpedo role by the time of the first Battle of El Alamein, or did that just apply to carrier based aircraft?

The FAA units originally came from FAA squadrons left ashore when the carriers Illustrious & Formidable were damaged in early 1941.

815 - operated around various bases in the Eastern Med (Crete, Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt & Libya) until July 1943. It had Swordfish throughout but added Albacores in Oct 1941.
826 - Egypt, Libya & Palestine during 1942, with det at Malta 11-12/42. Albacores throughout.
828 - Flown into Malta in Oct 1941 from Ark Royal. Equipped with Albacores throughout but absorbed a few Swordfish during its very early days on the island.
830 - From July 1940 to Dec 1942 (on paper it existed until March 1943) based at Hal Far, Malta with Swordfish. By March 1942 it had only 3 aircraft with its final two replacements arriving in May.

So although a lot of the credit goes to the Swordfish by 1942 it was playing second fiddle to the Albacore in number terms.

828 & 830 operated together from Malta throughout 1942 because the Swordfish got radar much earlier than the Albacores, so it is difficult to split sinkings between the two types. Total was something like 30 ships sunk & 50 damaged between 1940 & 1943.

 

[EwenS]

It is good but there are a few things don't make sense (at least to me) and a few spots where he got the aircraft wrong (Stripped Hurricane's shot down a Ju 86P? maybe earlier than the Spitfires did it?)

No he didnt get the aircraft wrong. Hurricanes were used in mid-1942 against high flying Ju86P over the Nile Delta. Modified Hurricanes were getting up to 37,000 feet. More info here (post 5 onwards):-

2-cannon Hurricane IIc's in Libya

I'm specifically referring to those of 417 Sqn. (RCAF), but I guess the question can apply to any MTO Hurricane IIc that had the outer 2 cannons removed, Does anyone know if the unused shell ejector chutes were either plugged up or covered by a cloth patch & then doped over to prevent debris ...

www.britmodeller.com

 

[Ovod]

The Fairey Swordfish did not sink 50,000 tons of shipping in the Mediterranean in any month...

An exception to that would of course be the Battle of Taranto, November 1940, when RN Swordfish "sank" 80,000 tons of shipping in one night.

 

[WARSPITER]

According to the information I have there were 27 Swordfish based on Malta and in a nine month period they accounted for 50,000 tons
per month average. August 1941 was the highest with 92,000 tons sunk.

How many tons sunk by submarines isn't relevant to this, especially since Italy lost over 2,500 vessels during the war.

 

[EwenS]

Also the many RAF bombers used in the anti-shipping role in the theatre, Beauforts, Beaufighters etc.
Would the Swordfish have been removed from torpedo role by the time of the first Battle of El Alamein, or did that just apply to carrier based aircraft?

Many types may have been used but not so many torpedo bomber squadrons. Aircraft being sent out from the UK were making up for losses in the Med.

Beaufort -
39 converted to Beauforts in Egypt late 1941. Periodic dets to Malta in 1942
42 squadron flew out to Egpyt 6/42 and promptly gave all its aircraft to 47 squadron.
47 flew its first anti-shipping strikes with Beauforts on 8/10/42 in Egypt
86 sent its aircraft from UK to Malta/Egypt in July 1942 and reduced to a cadre in UK. The aircraft were for use by 39.

22 & 217 I've already discussed.

There were 2 Wellington TB units:-
38 Converted to anti-shipping role in Jan 1942 and began night torpedo attacks from Egypt in March
458 became operational in anti-shipping ops from Egypt in Nov 1942.

14 squadron began to operate Marauder I from the end of Oct 1942 from bases in Egypt. And there was also 221 with Wellingtons & 230 with Sunderlands. Anything ese was being diverted from its day job to shipping strike.

In the first half of 1942 there were only 2 Beaufighter squadrons in the MIddle East, 252 & 272. A third, 227, was formed in Aug 1942 from dets of aircraft from 235 squadron at Malta, having been sent out from the parent UK based unit.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The Fairey Swordfish did not sink 50,000 tons of shipping in the Mediterranean in any month - 50,000 tons would probably be the average total amount of shipping sunk per by all means. RN and RAF aircraft were probably only responsible for a minority of Italian and German shipping losses during the war.

Biggest killer of Axis shipping in Europe in WW2 (in the Mediterranean at least) - RN submarine fleet.

That would be quite interesting if it's true, do you have any numbers on that?

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

There were more Albacores than Swordfish operating in Malta & Egypt in this period.

I don't think either Albacores or Swordfish were sinking a lot of Axis shipping in the second half of 1942, but I'm prepared to be wrong. Of the two the Swordfish seems to have wrought the most havoc. But it had very short range.

Without crunching the numbers yet, Beauforts and (mostly at night) Wellingtons seem to have been putting some torpedoes into ships. Sunderlands and PBYs seem to be getting some Axis subs. Beaufighters were out there causing harm, I'm not sure when they started putting torpedos on them (or if this was even applicable during the North African campaign) but they seem to have killed a lot of smaller ships and boats just by strafing. There were also Baltimores operating from Malta, I think at least one squadron under Coastal Command.

At some points the Americans were using B-25s and even Bostons to attack shipping with masthead height and / or skip-bombing (mostly against the merchant ships as this was dangerous if there was German light AA on the ship) and they were also successfully using the Kittyhawks and I gather, even P-39s to do some strafing / dive bombing attacks. In 1943 the A-36 Apache shows up which seems to have been surprisingly effective.

I'll try to compile some numbers on this later.

 

[WARSPITER]

The RN submarines sank over 300,000 tons of shipping from 41 to 42.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Good to know I am the problem again. It is really not that complicated from my end. You appear to only have access to the Shores Et. Al. book to figure out losses. Therefore that list must be used and considered correct. Even enhanced. The gap between what the book says and the air force records say was lost 8 February is ignored. Not used an example of verifying what the references are reporting.

Yes you seem to be having a problem with part of this discussion. In order to quantify the data, you have to have pretty simple criteria and be consistent about it. To me, 'shot down' = 'can't fly any more after being attacked'. To keep it simple. So long as you use the same criteria for both sides, I believe it's valid. It's not like I'm only counting crash landed planes on the Allied side. On that Feb 8 date the Allies didn't even make any claims IIRC.

I'm also not trying to second guess Shores here, and I'm not trying to follow the audit trail of every crash-landed aircraft.

So a simple explanation. As Shores points out a number of times tracking down total losses has problems at times. I add these problems are essentially the same for aircraft damaged badly enough to require removal from the unit, in both cases paperwork tends to be generated, aircraft movement cards updated. Adding aircraft that were repaired in unit throws open a major source of errors. You are now reliant on the individual unit records, what the person doing the reporting thought important, those people change and they can be told to change what to report. If you have seen examples of the reports you would know they cover a wide variety of styles and information. Then whether the Shores book reports all it finds.

Adding aircraft that are repaired doesn't introduce any errors if you are just counting aircraft that were shot down. Repairs and getting aircraft back into action are another aspect of this worth looking into. But if you do look at Shores, I'm afraid that you will find that there are a quite large number of KiA, MiA, and PoW on the Allied side as the result of air combat, especially in the fighter squadrons. Those were some brave men and they took appalling losses. It's more than just the machines. And I think a short turn-around on a 'heavily damaged' or crash-landed plane was not the norm.

All the above assumes the RAF, RA and Luftwaffe had compatible systems for reporting losses and damaged aircraft, as well as the usually very bad assumption the axis air force records for the time are as complete as the allied ones. And you want to include as losses an aircraft that was damaged but flew again in under 3 days, with the possibility it did not fly on day 2 because it was not needed that day. Include repaired in unit aircraft and the list is most probably worthless unless those losses are separated out. As another point, did either axis air force have rear area repair depots, the number of abandoned aircraft suggests not, so every axis repair was a by unit one? In the desert war the British Army tended to have lots of equipment captured by the axis, but the air force very little, the axis was the other way around.

I'm using Shores here because I think he's generally accepted as a valid source. He has been doing this a long time and his early books on the Desert Air War back in the 1960s and 70s were badly off on numbers because for example he didn't seem to have good sources for Italian losses. I don't think Shores is perfect and I have also found mistakes, and certainly you are correct when you say that Axis losses reported aren't always on the level - quite often for example Luftwaffe planes are lost to 'engine failure' after a combat when the Allies had made claims. Suspiciously often I'd say. The Italians don't give us much data and I suspect many aircraft reported simply as 'damaged' never flew again.

However I think Shores, partly because he does now work with a bunch of other historians including experts on the German and Italian records, does get it pretty close to correct, the best we have available right now for this Theater for sure, and he gives us basically raw data, formatted to make it a bit easier to read. This is much more useful to me than the opinions of an author (and I say that as someone who has done academic writing myself - when it comes to History, opinions and interpretations including mine should always be considered provisional, the data is really what matters). Hopefully at some point someone will come along and do an even better and more thorough job than Shores did in counting and adding up all these numbers for us, for now, he is the best source. I certainly don't think there is any reason to assume he is heavily biased or that the numbers he presents lean one way or the other.

On the basis of the above all loss lists are a waste of time. Instead I read it as Shores list, end of story, if the book says crash landed it equals loss.

The book doesn't say "crash landed equals loss" - that is my criteria for the list i made from Shores. Shores indicates whatever the records said - "lost", "MiA", "FTR", "Crash-landed", "Force-Landed", "Exploded", "Badly Damaged", "Damaged", "Engine Failure" etc. He also indicates what happened to the crew.

The spreadsheet I posted has such data by month for the Allies. Thanks for the interest. The file I am working from also has non combat losses. Your criteria is mentioned in Shores, less those with a couple of key words, you have zero idea of what the Shores criteria are or how complete that data is. To use every entry in Shores means you are comfortable all aircraft damaged enough not to fly again for 2 to 3 days (and maybe available earlier than that) are recorded for all units on both sides.

I'll give it a look mate, and I appreciate anyone doing that kind of numbers crunching. I've got house guests right now and can't spend as much time as I wish I could pouring over WW2 air combat loss data. But I'll check it out and thanks for putting it together.

You made a claim about fighter cover being annihilated often and failed to back it up. You are struggling with basic concepts, like having evidence to back the claims.

Really? Fighter cover wasn't annihilated on several of the days I already listed? You are calling me a liar here basically. Maybe we need to plunge deeper into some of those 'bad days'.

The Bf110 versus the Beaufighter was not that uneven.

I wouldn't say it was. There were many interesting and perilous duels between Beaufighter and Bf 110 over the Med going into 1943. Bf 110 was also a good night fighter. What was uneven though was Bf 110 vs. Spitfire, Kittyhawk, Hurricane, even Martlet. That meant it was inadequate.

Bragadin notes different figures, April to October 1942, 0.78%, 7.24%, 22.14%, 6.45%, 33.03%, 20%, 44.2%. Remembering of course ships were lost sailing both ways.

So slightly different numbers? I still see very low losses (below 1%, below 10%) then moving up to 1/5, then below 1/10, then 1/5, then almost half. That is telling basically the same story I think.

So how many vehicles and how many units qualify for most heavily hit?

Those are numbers we can wade into. I think we have to settle the first few basic issues first. We are struggling on pretty basic and obvious stuff right now.

Casualties, Killed, Wounded, Missing, Allied 1,750, German 1,859, Italian 1,051, 38 Panzers, 11 Italian tanks, 67 British tanks.

What is your source for that?

Rommel would not be the first general to decide most of his defeat was due to enemy airpower, not the opposing general, one who had laid down a plan that was followed and who stayed in control of the situation. For devastating and decisive the losses to airpower need to be split from those inflicted by the ground forces, plus dealing with the way DAK kept moving until it hit resistance on the ground, not in the air.

Rommel's opinion is not the last word, but it's certainly a data point. The key thing is I think you will find people on both sides who share his opinion on the role of Air Power in El Alamein, but I'll get deeper into that too.

 

[Ovod]

According to the information I have there were 27 Swordfish based on Malta and in a nine month period they accounted for 50,000 tons
per month average. August 1941 was the highest with 92,000 tons sunk.

How many tons sunk by submarines isn't relevant to this, especially since Italy lost over 2,500 vessels during the war.

What sources would they be? I am using the webpage provided by EwenS yesterday which certainly doesn't depict any "50,000 tons" per month as well as a pretty comprehensive wikipedia page I found later last night. I could count just under 21,000 tons sunk by Swordfish including a 13,000 ton hospital ship.

Axis merchants lost on the North Africa Route – 1941-1943
List of shipwrecks in August 1941 - Wikipedia

 

[Ovod]

That would be quite interesting if it's true, do you have any numbers on that?

Axis merchants lost on the North Africa Route – 1941-1943
List of shipwrecks in August 1941 - Wikipedia

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I am about 3/4 of the way through Ehler's book ('The Mediterranean Air War') (start of the Invasion of Sicily).

It is good but there are a few things don't make sense (at least to me) and a few spots where he got the aircraft wrong (Stripped Hurricane's shot down a Ju 86P? maybe earlier than the Spitfires did it?)

It does seem to cover the basic principles fairly well, I hesitate to call it tactics as he does not go into aircraft formations like "fingers four" or how/why actual interceptions were done. Things are much more on the operational level.

What is amazing is there seems to be a huge disconnect between planes "lost" and planes claimed shot down in combat. As in hundreds of planes disappearing from the ready lists in just a few weeks time in periods of heavy action. This does not seem to line up with Shores where the losses seem to be a few per day or handfuls.
Operational losses or mechanical failures?
There are times where the Luftwaffe was reporting around 50% of available aircraft were operational.
British had 3rd catagory. Available in the next 14 days.

Maybe I am just bad a math but reported combat losses (especially if you are verifying them) don't seem to match the number of available aircraft. The number of available aircraft seems to be very low, something was happening to the planes. and counting just combat losses doesn't seem to a good way of figuring out which side is "winning". Not very satisfying but what do we do? The Germans were doing good if they had 60% serviceability at times, the British were closer to 70% or a few times over that. That can make a big difference with each side having around 1000 planes. It also means that many of the unserviceable planes were not a result of combat damage or very slight combat damage.
There is a bit of accounting trickery when counting the losses I will get into another time (on the British side).

I think the serviceability issue you are looking at is largely down to the rather awful conditions for flying (vis a vis dust especially) and the logistics difficulties and challenges for both sides. It also fluctuates enormously week to week as you are probably noticing and that can vary depending on for example, what is the condition of the airfield.

Is it a major well supplied base or a remote outpost little more than a few tents and a lot full of trucks on a patch of desert. Was it bombed recently or is it relatively protected. Is it a new field they just took over or established or is it an old one with a lot of facilities. Is it way at the end of a long supply chain or closer to the port. Etc.

It seems prior to the big battles both sides got a lot of aircraft serviceable, but there were long periods where they were struggling with the effects of dust and sand, with shortages of various things (one little thing like oil filters or spark plugs being scarce can put a big crimp on the situation) and with the availability and morale of men.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The RN submarines sank over 300,000 tons of shipping from 41 to 42.

if that's true it's certainly a big number!

 

[WARSPITER]

What sources would they be? I am using the webpage provided by EwenS yesterday which certainly doesn't depict any "50,000 tons" per month as well as a pretty comprehensive wikipedia page I found later last night. I could count just under 21,000 tons sunk by Swordfish including a 13,000 ton hospital ship.

Axis merchants lost on the North Africa Route – 1941-1943
List of shipwrecks in August 1941 - Wikipedia

I think the list on the 1941-43 link may be incomplete since the Axis merchant vessel sinking by British forces totalled 3082 ships at a total
of over 4,000,000 tons.

 

[Vincenzo]

The 40-43 total merchant losses in Libya route were 584,257 metric ton, including back route an other 51,725 ton were loss in local Libyan routes, in the Tunisian route (11/42-5/43) were lost 271,387 tons, in the eastern routes (to Albania, Greece and Egeo) an other 146,140 tons

 

[EwenS]

I don't think either Albacores or Swordfish were sinking a lot of Axis shipping in the second half of 1942, but I'm prepared to be wrong. Of the two the Swordfish seems to have wrought the most havoc. But it had very short range.

Here is a map showing aircraft ranges from Malta.

The Albacore had a greater range than the Swordfish.

As to whether the Swordfish or the Albacore played the greatest part in sinking ships in the Med, it should be noted that the first Albacores did not arrive on Malta until Oct 1941. And the Albacore squadrons in Egypt spent a lot of time supporting the heavy bombers or in night attacks on Rommel's supply lines and airfields. In 1942 however the Albacore was appearing in increasing numbers. It is an aircraft that gets little credit for its work. Everyone remembers the Swordfish. few remember the Albacore.

David Hobbs in his book "Taranto and Naval Air Warfare in the Mediterranean , 1940-1945" references Admiralty documents from Feb 1943 on the achievements of the two Malta based FAA squadrons (828 & 830) in the latter part of 1942. They were credited with sinking or severely damaging 185,000 tons of shipping, being at least 35 Axis suppy ships, plus a cruiser, and 6 destroyers or large escorts and that despite being short of most supplies.

He goes on to list 17 cases of their major achievements between 15 June and 31 Dec 1942. Only 5 of those referred to Swordfish being involved, and in all 5 cases it was in conjunction with Albacores. At least part of the co-operation was to do with the Swordfish receiving radar at a much earlier stage of the war. Albacores didn't begin to be equipped with radar for technical reasons until very late in 1941, and of course it then took some time to filter through to the overseas land based squadrons.

Without crunching the numbers yet, Beauforts and (mostly at night) Wellingtons seem to have been putting some torpedoes into ships. Sunderlands and PBYs seem to be getting some Axis subs. Beaufighters were out there causing harm, I'm not sure when they started putting torpedos on them (or if this was even applicable during the North African campaign) but they seem to have killed a lot of smaller ships and boats just by strafing. There were also Baltimores operating from Malta, I think at least one squadron under Coastal Command.

The Beaufort was the main torpedo bomber in the Med in 1942. The squadrons with it suffered horrendous losses.

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During this period the Beaufighters were limited to cannon & MG, as they were mostly Ic models. VIc models began to arrive on the squadrons in Oct / Nov 1942 but it was April / May 1943 before bombs began to be carried on those and about mid-1943 before the changeover was complete.

The first trial installation of a torpedo on a Beaufighter was not authorised until April 1942. The first torpedo aircraft produced went to 254 in the UK in June being Mk.VIc ITF. They flew their first torpedo sortie on 20 Nov 1942 as part of the newly formed North Coates strike wing. In fact I don't think any Med Beaufighter squadron flew torpedo equipped aircraft. By the time they would have become available in mid-1943 there were very few targets left that were worthy of a torpedo.

The only non-bomber Baltimore squadron in this period was 69 whose main job was recce. It was based on Malta from 1941 to 1944. But its equipment was basically anything it could get its hands on. In the second half of 1942 it used PR Spitfires, and Wellingtons as well as the Baltimores. Prior to that it had used other types as well.

Coastal Command was a UK based organisation. In the Med it was AHQ Malta or 201 (Naval Co-operation) Group under Middle East Command that controlled anti-shipping operations in the central / eastern Med.

At some points the Americans were using B-25s and even Bostons to attack shipping with masthead height and / or skip-bombing (mostly against the merchant ships as this was dangerous if there was German light AA on the ship) and they were also successfully using the Kittyhawks and I gather, even P-39s to do some strafing / dive bombing attacks. In 1943 the A-36 Apache shows up which seems to have been surprisingly effective.

I thought the discussion was about late 1942 and El Alamein? The first P-39s in the Med appeared in Algeria after Operation Torch.

I'll try to compile some numbers on this later.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The 40-43 total merchant losses in Libya route were 584,257 metric ton, including back route an other 51,725 ton were loss in local Libyan routes, in the Tunisian route (11/42-5/43) were lost 271,387 tons, in the eastern routes (to Albania, Greece and Egeo) an other 146,140 tons

So 1,053,509 tons, during 24 months, so total losses of 43,896 per month.

Which makes it seem unlikely for 50,000 tons per month lost to a single aircraft type. If 300,000 tons were really lost to Submarines in 1941-42, that would be quite significant!

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Here is a map showing aircraft ranges from Malta.

View attachment 702539

The Albacore had a greater range than the Swordfish.

As to whether the Swordfish or the Albacore played the greatest part in sinking ships in the Med, it should be noted that the first Albacores did not arrive on Malta until Oct 1941. And the Albacore squadrons in Egypt spent a lot of time supporting the heavy bombers or in night attacks on Rommel's supply lines and airfields. In 1942 however the Albacore was appearing in increasing numbers. It is an aircraft that gets little credit for its work. Everyone remembers the Swordfish. few remember the Albacore.

David Hobbs in his book "Taranto and Naval Air Warfare in the Mediterranean , 1940-1945" references Admiralty documents from Feb 1943 on the achievements of the two Malta based FAA squadrons (828 & 830) in the latter part of 1942. They were credited with sinking or severely damaging 185,000 tons of shipping, being at least 35 Axis suppy ships, plus a cruiser, and 6 destroyers or large escorts and that despite being short of most supplies.

He goes on to list 17 cases of their major achievements between 15 June and 31 Dec 1942. Only 5 of those referred to Swordfish being involved, and in all 5 cases it was in conjunction with Albacores. At least part of the co-operation was to do with the Swordfish receiving radar at a much earlier stage of the war. Albacores didn't begin to be equipped with radar for technical reasons until very late in 1941, and of course it then took some time to filter through to the overseas land based squadrons.

The Beaufort was the main torpedo bomber in the Med in 1942. The squadrons with it suffered horrendous losses.

Amazon product ASIN B01NBT5AYU
View: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armed-Rovers-Beauforts-Beaufighters-Mediterranean-ebook/dp/B01NBT5AYU/ref=sr_1_2?crid=E3X22DBJGDZ&keywords=beaufort+in+mediterranean&qid=1673723499&sprefix=beaufort+in+mediterranean%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-2
During this period the Beaufighters were limited to cannon & MG, as they were mostly Ic models. VIc models began to arrive on the squadrons in Oct / Nov 1942 but it was April / May 1943 before bombs began to be carried on those and about mid-1943 before the changeover was complete.

The first trial installation of a torpedo on a Beaufighter was not authorised until April 1942. The first torpedo aircraft produced went to 254 in the UK in June being Mk.VIc ITF. They flew their first torpedo sortie on 20 Nov 1942 as part of the newly formed North Coates strike wing. In fact I don't think any Med Beaufighter squadron flew torpedo equipped aircraft. By the time they would have become available in mid-1943 there were very few targets left that were worthy of a torpedo.

The only non-bomber Baltimore squadron in this period was 69 whose main job was recce. It was based on Malta from 1941 to 1944. But its equipment was basically anything it could get its hands on. In the second half of 1942 it used PR Spitfires, and Wellingtons as well as the Baltimores. Prior to that it had used other types as well.

Coastal Command was a UK based organisation. In the Med it was AHQ Malta or 201 (Naval Co-operation) Group under Middle East Command that controlled anti-shipping operations in the central / eastern Med.


I thought the discussion was about late 1942 and El Alamein? The first P-39s in the Med appeared in Algeria after Operation Torch.

Thanks for posting, the map is helpful. I would assume during phases when Malta was well equipped and fairly active (it wasn't always) they would avoid the supply route(s) that go very close to Malta and focus more on the other, however some of the other routes were still within the range of land based bombers (and fighters) in Egypt.

As for mentioning the P-39 and A-36, you'll have to forgive me for bleeding over into 1943. I don't think either type was that significant against shipping though I could be wrong, though I know they did use the P-39 mainly in the 'coastal patrol' role until well into 1944 in Italy when they seem to have sorted out some issues with it and started using it as a fighter-bomber.

In 1942 I think the most effective fighter bomber in this maritime attack role was the Kittyhawk, followed by the Hurricane. Beaufighters obviously as well.

I'm still not convinced Blenheims got a lot of ships in maritime strikes though I'm willing to learn otherwise. I know the Wellingtons did get some ships at some points, though I also see them taking losses.

 

[Vincenzo]

So 1,053,509 tons, during 24 months, so total losses of 43,896 per month.

Which makes it seem unlikely for 50,000 tons per month lost to a single aircraft type. If 300,000 tons were really lost to Submarines in 1941-42, that would be quite significant!

Actually this are from 6/40 to 8/43 so 39 months

 

[Vincenzo]

the total lost of merchantmen including accident, scuttled and in harbour are 2,272,707 this incluse all italian flag merchant and the german flag in the mediterranean sea
of this 826,378 by submarines, 775,280 by aircraft, 143,603 by surface ships, 137,846 by mine