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They did that because one destroyer, and old four piper I think, sank after ramming a U-boat. No men died fighting the boat, yet over 20 died in bad weather abandoning the destroyer the next day.

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The action you are referring to was between the USS Borie DD-215, and the U-405 on the night of 1 Novermber, 1943.

Planes from the escort carrier Card detected two surfaced U-boats and guided destroyers in to attack. One of them, the Borie chased and caught the U-405 on the surface in a heavy storm. The skipper of the U-405 elected to stay on the surface and shoot it out with the old "four-piper". The gun battle was ferocious and lasted almost an hour; the U-405 managed to hit the Borie twice, once amidships and once on the bridge. The Borie hit the sub's conning tower several times and badly damaged it. Finally, the Borie's skipper decided to ram and drove in on the sub at 25 knots, hitting aft of the conning tower, and breaching the pressure hull, but not sinking it. The two vessels were locked together for at least ten minutes while the two crews battled it out with rifles, pistols, even flare guns and sheath knives. The U-405's conning tower was set afire and the fire could not be extinguished. Eventually, the destroyer was wrenched apart from the sub by the mountainous seas, but in sliding off the sub, sustained damage to it's port side, which caused the forward engine room to flood.

The sub, though mortally hurt, managed to get underway and attempted to escape into the stormy darkness. Borie, also heavily damaged, kept tracking by radar and launched torpedoes at the sub, but they missed. Again, the Borie attempted to ram, but was unable to hit the wildly evading sub. In desperation, the U-405's skipper turned to ram the Borie, but the Borie turned away and fired a depth charge pattern that badly shook the sub and stopped it's charge. Turning once again to the attack, Borie's gunners got their main battery on target and obliterated the subs mangled conning tower. This proved to be the end of the sub and the Germans began abandoning their vessel.

The Borie, however, was mortally damaged. Progressive flooding in the bow and forward engine room, aggravated by the stress of the storm, overcame all damage control efforts. The next evening, with two other destroyers standing by, the Borie's crew abandoned the battered destroyer. During the transfer of her crew to the other destroyers, three of Borie's officers, and 27 crewmen were lost.