Unlike other contemporary navies, the German Kriegsmarine had no own naval aviation. All Aircraft - coastal based and ship based - were under command of the Luftwaffe and flown by Luftwaffe officers, following the Görings order "everything that flies belongs to me". The result of this conflict was not very surprising, the naval arm of the Luftwaffe was never as effective as those of the allied forces, caused by the fact that the operational planing belonged to the Luftwaffe instead of the Kriegsmarine. Only the 30 ship based float planes were under operational command of the Kriegsmarine.

Despite the very low number of aircraft available for naval operations - less then 200 (5% of the total Luftwaffe strength), those aircraft had multiple task. From coastal patrols over submarine  hunting and Search-and-Rescue missions to reconnaissance for submarines in the North Atlantic, or such special operations like refueling U-boats in the Barents Sea or resupplying weather stations in arctic bases.