U 344 (Navy)
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U 344 (Kriegsmarine) ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 50920 |
| Shipyard: | North Sea Works , Emden |
| Construction contract: | January 20, 1941 |
| Build number: | 216 |
| Keel laying: | May 7, 1942 |
| Launch: | January 29, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | March 26, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
Ulrich Pietsch |
| Calls: | two ventures |
| Sinkings: |
a warship with 1,350 tons sunk |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk by an aircraft attack in the Barents Sea on August 22, 1944 |
U 344 was a German U-boat of the type VII C , which in submarine warfare during World War II by the German Navy in the North Atlantic was used and the North Sea.
construction
At the beginning of the war, the Emden Nordseewerke stopped civil shipbuilding and geared production to military shipbuilding. In addition to the repair and overhaul of surface units, this shipyard took on the production of submarines in particular and built a total of 30 submarines for the Navy from 1941 to 1944. 22 of them belonged to the Type VII C, the most popular German submarine class at the time. U 344 was launched on January 29, 1943 and was put into service on March 26 by Oberleutnant zur See Ulrich Pietsch. Like most German submarines of its time, U 344 also had a boat-specific mark. The boat carried the Olympic rings . It was the crew mark of Pietsch's officer class in 1936 - the year of the Summer Olympics in Germany
Commitment and history
Until March 31, 1944, U 344 belonged as a training boat to the 8th U-Flotilla , which was stationed in Danzig , then it was assigned to the 3rd U-Flotilla in La Pallice as a front boat. Commander Pietsch moved to Narvik by boat between April and the end of May . From here on May 31, 1944, U 344's first venture began . The boat operated on this voyage in the Arctic Ocean and in the Northern European Sea . At the beginning of July, U 344 entered the bow bay . From here the boat set out for its second venture on August 3, 1944.
Defiance against JW 59
On this voyage, U 344 belonged to the Trutz submarine group , which tried to disrupt the Allied convoy system in the North Sea in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . On August 20, a German maritime patrol aircraft spotted east of the island of Jan Mayen the convoy JW 59 , who with a strong escort assurance on the way from Scotland to Murmansk was. The following day, the boats of the Trutz submarine group tracked down the convoy. Commander Pietsch sank one of the escort ships, the HMS Kite , a sloop of the modified Black-Swan class of the British Royal Navy .
Loss of the boat
The pilot of a biplane launched by escort carrier HMS Vindex attacked U 344 with three depth charges on August 22nd, two of which detonated without causing major damage. The third hit the boat, rolled over the deck, and got caught in a cable at the bow as the submarine descended. A short time later, black smoke rose after an underwater detonation, U 344 lifted the stern out of the water and sank. A survivor could be seen on the surface of the water, for whom the crew of the Swordfish wanted to drop an inflatable boat, but failed.
literature
- Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars . Translated from the English by Alfred P. Zeller, Urbes-Verlag, Gräfelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 167.
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
Individual evidence
- ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , page 93
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