One of the lessons of World War I was the necessity of adhering to a convoy system for overseas transport. Merchant ships traveling without protection were simply too vulnerable to attack from surface raiders, submarines, and aircraft. At its most basic, a convoy is nothing more than a collection of merchant vessels traveling under escort by warships, and all the combatant nations that had access to ocean transport used convoys during World War II. However, the Axis nations used them to a far lesser extent than the Allies. Germany used only coastal convoys. Italy used coastal convoys as well as trans-Mediterranean convoys. Japan employed a haphazard escort system, which resulted in heavy losses of merchantmen.

In contrast to the Axis, the Allies, who depended heavily on transatlantic transport, developed an elaborate system of convoys. Regular convoys were assembled at a single port, left port together, then sailed together. Operational convoys were for the movement of troopships and were generally small, consisting of four ships, typically civilian ocean liners requisitioned for troop transport, and escorted by fast surface ships. The very fastest ocean liners, most notably the British liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, did not travel in convoys but sailed alone. Their chief defense was speed.

At first, westbound convoys were escorted only partway across the Atlantic to a point at which their escorts would intercept eastbound ships, come about, and escort them. The conclusion of the ABC-1 Staff Agreement and the Atlantic Charter between Great Britain and the United States, however, provided U.S. Navy escorts in the west. By May 1941, bases were also established in Iceland, which enabled armed escort across the entire Atlantic. This did leave a so-called air gap in the mid-Atlantic, an area beyond the range of defensive air coverage, which was not closed until late in the war.

The inherent problem with convoys was variation in the speed of the convoy vessels. Convoys consisting mostly of fast ships could adopt a zigzag course, which was an effective evasive tactic, but slower, less maneuverable ships were incapable of such tactics and instead took evasive courses, deliberately departing from the major and most direct sea lanes in order to avoid interception by enemy surface raiders and submarines. . .

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