SS Makambo
Makambo at anchor
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | SS Makambo |
| Owner: | Burns Philp & Co. Ltd |
| Builder: | Clyde Shipbuilding Company, Port Glasgow |
| Yard number: | 273 |
| Launched: | 16 March 1907 |
| In service: | 1907 |
| Out of service: | 12 June 1944 |
| Fate: | Sunk |
| Notes: | Torpedoed by HMS Stoic off Phuket 12 June 1944 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 1159 grt |
| Length: | 210.3 feet |
| Beam: | 31.4 feet |
| Installed power: | Steam |
| Propulsion: | Screw |
SS Makambo was a steamship first owned by Burns Philp & Co. Ltd. She was built in Port Glasgow and named after an island in the Solomon Islands. She carried both passengers and cargo and was principally used on routes between eastern Australia and islands in Melanesia and the Tasman Sea. Between 1910 and 1931 she travelled a regular route between Sydney and Port Vila in the New Hebrides, with stops at Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. She was acquired in 1939 by Okada Gumi KK of Osaka, Japan, and renamed Kainan Maru. She was torpedoed and sunk on 12 June 1944 by the British submarine HMS Stoic off Phuket, Thailand.
On 15 June 1918 Makambo ran aground near Neds Beach, at the northern end of Lord Howe Island. There was only one immediate casualty; a passenger, Miss Readon, was drowned when a boat capsized during the evacuation of passengers and crew from the vessel. The ship was only temporarily out of service until repairs could be made; however, Makambo was aground for nine days before she was refloated. The incident had allowed black rats to leave the ship and go ashore on the island, where they thrived. This introduction gave rise to an environmental disaster, with the rats causing the extinction of several of the island’s endemic birds and other fauna in the next few years through predation, as well as causing hardship to the islanders by raiding their crops and only export commodity, the seeds of the kentia palm.
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