U-103 started to crash dive but not fast enough. Olympic sliced through the sub killing 8 crew the rest were able to abandon ship but were ignored by Olympic. USS Davis later sighted a flare and took the sub’s 35 survivors as POWs to Queenstown.
“In the early hours of May 12, 1918, RMS Olympic (while serving as HMT Olympic) rammed and sank German submarine U-103.
Olympic’s gunners opened fire at once, and the ship turned to ram the submarine, which immediately crash dived to 30 m (98 ft) and turned to a parallel course. Almost immediately afterwards Olympic struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower with her port propeller slicing through U-103’s pressure hull. The crew of U-103 blew her ballast tanks, scuttled and abandoned the submarine. Olympic did not stop to pick up survivors, but continued on to Cherbourg. Meanwhile, USS Davis (DD-65) had sighted a distress flare and picked up 31 survivors from U-103. Olympic returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached. It was subsequently discovered that U-103 had been preparing to torpedo Olympic when she was sighted, but the crew were not able to flood the two stern torpedo tubes. For his service, Captain Hayes was awarded the DSO.”
