While southbound to African waters on the evening of 8 February German Type IX submarine sighted the convoy southwest of Cape St. Vincent and torpedoed the British freighters Courland and Estrellano after midnight. U-37 reported the convoy to Bordeaux-Mérignac Air Base and commenced shadowing the convoy providing beacon signals for Kampfgeschwader 40. Five Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor bombers took off at dawn and found the convoy at noon southwest of Lisbon. The Fw 200s bombed from an altitude of because they lacked bombsights. Each flight mechanic fired at their target ship with a ventral machine gun during the approach to discourage anti-aircraft gunners; but one of the bombers was hit in a wing fuel tank and crash-landed in Spain when fuel was exhausted on the return trip. Six of the twenty bombs dropped hit ships, sinking the convoy commodore's freighter Dagmar, the Norwegian freighter Tejo, and British freighters Britannic, Jura, and Varna. U-37 sank the British freighter Brandenburg after dark and continued sending beacon signals for the . Admiral Hipper found and sank the straggling British freighter Iceland on 11 February.