German submarine U-344

German submarine U-344 was a Type VIIC U-boat of the Nazi German Kriegsmarine during World War II.

She was a member of two wolfpacks.

She was on her third patrol when she was sunk by a British aircraft in August 1944.

She sank one warship.

Service history
The submarine was laid down on 7 May 1941 at the Nordseewerke yard at Emden as 'werk' 216, launched on 29 January 1943 and commissioned on 26 March under the command of Kapitänleutnant Ulrich Pietsch.

U-342 served with the 8th U-boat Flotilla, for training and the 3rd flotilla for operations from 1 April 1944. She was reassigned to the 11th flotilla on 1 June 1944.

1st patrol
U-344 had sailed from Kiel in Germany to Flekkefjord (west of Kristiansand) and then Bergen in Norway in April and May 1944, but her first patrol began when she departed Bergen on 20 May and followed the Norwegian coastline. She arrived at Narvik on the 27th.

2nd patrol
Her second foray involved criss-crossing the Norwegian Sea. At one point she passed east of Jan Mayen Island. She arrived at Bogenbucht (west of Narvik) on 8 July 1944.

3rd patrol and loss
Having departed Bogenbucht on 3 August 1944, she sank the British sloop HMS Kite in the Barents Sea on the 21st. Of 226 crew, nine men survived the icy water. The next day, a British Fairey Swordfish of 825 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Vindex, dropped a pattern of depth charges on the U-boat.

Fifty men died in the sinking; there were no survivors.

Previously recorded fate
U-344 was thought to have been sunk on 24 August 1944 in the Barents Sea off the North Cape by British warships: i.e. the sloops HMS Mermaid and Peacock, the frigate Loch Dunvegan and the destroyer Keppel. U-354 was the victim.