At 15.30 hours on 6 April 1941 the unescorted Lincoln Ellsworth was hit on the port side forward of amidships by one G7a torpedo from U-94 about 150 miles west of Iceland. At 16.01 hours, the tanker was hit aft by a coup de grâce and developed a list to port, but did not sink. The U-boat surfaced and fired 121 rounds from the deck gun of which about 100 were hits, set the ship on fire and caused her to sink by the stern about 17.00 hours.

The crew had abandoned ship in two lifeboats after the first hit. The master and 12 survivors in one lifeboat were picked up after two days by HMS Derbyshire (F 78) off Sandar and landed at Reykjavik, while the survivors in the other boat were rescued by several small Icelandic fishing boats out of Hellissandur on 8 April.