Cyprian Prince's radio operator William Costello, logged at 05.07hrs “Called GKR (Wick Radio), giving secret callsign, “SOS. Sinking in 5818N, 0225W””. Costello then looked out to see the two well lit neutral ships which had been following Cyprian Prince all night. (These were thought to be the Danish Tekla, and the Norwegian Miranda). Seaman Cyril Monck in Cyprian Prince jumped out of his bunk on hearing the first explosion, and was pulling on his trousers at the time of the second. He went on deck and saw the lights of two neutral steamers on the port beam, apparently heading south. (He would have been confused by the fact that, by then, Cyprian Prince had reversed course to close the men in the water).

George Montgomery, Chief Engineer of the Cyprian Prince, was asleep in his bunk on the starboard side, just above the engine room. He was wakened by a series of small bangs, which he took to be a door banging in the engine room. He got up to investigate, and shouted down to the engine room “Shut that door”, but was told by the Second Engineer that the door he had thought to be responsible for the banging was securely shut. When questioned at some length by the Court of Enquiry about the noise that had wakened him, he said he heard three or four bangs which sounded like bangs on the ships side. These were followed two or three minutes afterwards by a very heavy detonation which seemed quite close by.

U-22's Ktb (Kriegstagebuche - war diary) reveals that the U-boat was heading south on the surface on a very dark night. The moon was setting behind the clouds when they saw the illuminated neutral ships heading north west. While Jenisch was looking at them, a blacked-out destroyer, followed by a similarly darkened steamship, unexpectedly moved into his line of sight between the U-boat and the illuminated ships. Had it not been for the lights of the neutral ships, he would not have spotted the darkened ships at all. Caught by surprise, Jenisch accelerated to try to get into a good firing position, but was unable to get ahead of the destroyer. After a pursuit lasting almost an hour he fired one torpedo at the destroyer, and a second at the steamship. The first torpedo exploded after 2 minutes 35 seconds, when it hit Exmouth in the starboard side at the forward magazine, sparking off a tremendous secondary explosion and producing thick black smoke.

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