| abstract | - German submarine U-346 was a Type VIIC U-boat of the Nazi German Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down at the Nordseewerke in Emden as werk 218 on 28 October 1942, launched on 13 April 1943 and commissioned on 7 June of the same year under the command of Oberleutnant Arno Leisten. She had been built for operations during the Battle of the Atlantic, but was the victim of an accident before she started operations. On 20 September 1943, the boat was undergoing diving trials as part of the 8th U-boat flotilla in Danzig Bay in the Baltic Sea; an unknown mechanical fault occurred, sending the submarine into a crash dive from which she never recovered, descending to the bottom of the bay, where she and her crew remain to this day. 37 people died on U-346, but unfortunately for the Kriegsmarine, the personnel aboard the boat were not regular U-boat crew, but a combination of the ship's officers (who were all killed), and dockyard experts on submarine operating systems (six of whom escaped the wreck), whose loss was far more severe than the loss of the boat of its crew, had they been aboard.
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