UC-38's single hit and the rescue of both crews

Châteaurenault was carrying nearly 1,000 soldiers toward the Allied intervention in Greece when the minelaying submarine UC-38 fired one torpedo and scored one fatal hit. The single-shot success combined impressive torpedo accuracy with the vulnerability of a cruiser whose internal construction dated from the 1890s. Nobel laureate Ronald Ross, one of those aboard, later described the slow sinking in his memoirs. The ship went down slowly enough for escorting destroyers and nearby drifters to remove the troops and most of the crew, with the recorded deaths concentrated among engineering personnel struck by the explosion. UC-38 exposed her position while maneuvering for a second attack and was forced to the surface by depth charges and gunfire. French destroyers then rescued the German survivors.