Some hours after her loss two signals were made to Exmouth, at 1546 and 1725 to report her position, following an earlier order at 1239 from C-in-C Rosyth to search for a submarine which had sunk a Danish ship - the Tekla.

When it was, finally, realised that Exmouth had been lost, the destroyer HMS Sikh, the minesweepers HMS Sphinx, the tug St.Mellons, the A/S trawlers King Sol, Loch Monteith, St.Elstan and St.Cathan, and the Wick lifeboat City of Edinburgh immediately rushed to the area and an air search was made. St.Mellons reported large quantities of oil fuel and surface wreckage, but no survivors.  One lifebuoy from the Exmouth was found floating amongst a handful of orange crates and other flotsam. HMS Sphinx picked up the lifebuoy, and the rescue ships also picked up a raft bearing two dead bodies and marked M/S Maurija, in 5817N, 0126W.

On 28 January, nine bodies from the Exmouth were washed ashore at Wick. They were found by Donald Sutherland, a ten-year-old schoolboy who was playing truant from school. More bodies came ashore at Lybster. A mass funeral took place in Wick on the 31st. Eighteen ratings were buried in a mass grave. One of them was PO Joe O'Brien, a pre-war athlete of note, who had won 200 medals for swimming.

The Admiralty Board of Enquiry spent some time considering the effectiveness of Exmouth's Asdic, and found that Benson had not given Wilson clear instructions, and that his signal “Follow me” was wholly inadequate. They also stated that Benson should not have shown a stern light, as this was inviting attack. Normal convoy practice would have been for the escort to take station on the convoy, rather than the other way around. They also debated whether the captain of the Cyprian Prince had done the right thing in obeying the Admiralty DMS (Defence of Merchant Shipping) instructions in abandoning the survivors of the destroyer when he might have rescued them, but concluded that his action had been correct.

Captain Wilson was clearly badly affected by the episode and left Cyprian Prince after this voyage. He was “not expected to return”.

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