The SS Makambo was a steamship

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

 first owned by Burns Philp & Co. Ltd

Burns Philp

Burns Philp was once a major player in the food manufacturing business. Since its delisting from the Australian Stock Exchange in December 2006 and the subsequent sale of its assets, the company has mainly become a cashed up shell company...

. She was built in Port Glasgow

Port Glasgow

Port Glasgow is the second largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16617 persons...

 and named after an island in the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

. She carried both passengers and cargo and was principally used on routes between eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and islands in Melanesia

Melanesia

Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...

 and the Tasman Sea

Tasman Sea

The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...

. Between 1910 and 1931 she travelled a regular route between Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 and Port Vila

Port Vila

Port Vila is the capital and largest city of Vanuatu. Situated on the south coast of the island of Efate, in Shefa Province, the city population at last was 29,356, an increase of 55% on the previous census result . This suggests a 2007 population of about 40,000 or around 65% of the province's...

 in the New Hebrides

New Hebrides

New Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...

, with stops at Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, and about from Norfolk Island. The island is about 11 km long and between 2.8 km and 0.6 km wide with an area of...

 and Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...

. She was acquired in 1939 by Okada Gumi KK of Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, and renamed the Kainan Maru. She was torpedoed and sunk on 12 June 1944 by the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 HMS Stoic

HMS Stoic (P231)

HMS Stoic was an S class submarine of the Royal Navy, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built by Cammell Laird and launched on April 9, 1943...

 off Phuket

Phuket Province

Phuket , formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon , is one of the southern provinces of Thailand...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

.

Grounding at Lord Howe Island

On 15 June 1918 the Makambo ran aground near Neds Beach, at the northern end of Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, and about from Norfolk Island. The island is about 11 km long and between 2.8 km and 0.6 km wide with an area of...

. 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, it was aground for nine days before it was refloated and the incident had allowed Black Rat

Black Rat

The black rat is a common long-tailed rodent of the genus Rattus in the subfamily Murinae . The species originated in tropical Asia and spread through the Near East in Roman times before reaching Europe by the 1st century and spreading with Europeans across the world.-Taxonomy:The black rat was...

s 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.

Problems with the rats led to an attempted ecological solution through the deliberate introduction of Masked Owl

Masked Owl

The Australian Masked Owl is a barn owl of Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia.-Taxonomy:Described subspecies of Tyto novaehollandiae include:* T. n. calabyi I.J. Mason, 1983,...

s between 1922 and 1930 to the island, an action which compounded the disaster by adding another predator to the ecosystem. Birds which became extinct soon after the arrival of rats include the Lord Howe Island Thrush

Lord Howe Island Thrush

The Lord Howe Island Thrush , also known as Vinous-tinted Thrush or Vinous-tinted blackbird, is an extinct subspecies of the Island Thrush...

, Lord Howe Gerygone

Lord Howe Gerygone

The Lord Howe Gerygone , also known as the Lord Howe Island Flyeater or, locally, as the "Rain-bird" or "Pop-goes-the-weasel", was a small bird in the Acanthizidae family which was endemic to Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea, part of New South Wales, Australia...

, Lord Howe Starling

Lord Howe Starling

The Lord Howe Starling was a small bird in the starling family. It is an extinct subspecies of the Tasman Starling , the only other subspecies being the Norfolk Starling which is also extinct...

, Lord Howe Fantail

Lord Howe Fantail

The Lord Howe Fantail , also known as the Lord Howe Island Fantail or Fawn-breasted Fantail, was a small bird in the fantail family, Rhipiduridae. It is an extinct subspecies of the New Zealand Fantail...

 and Robust White-eye

Robust White-eye

The Robust White-eye , also known as the Lord Howe White-eye or Robust Silvereye, and locally as the "Big Grinnell", was a species of bird in the Zosteropidae family...

. The Lord Howe Boobook

Lord Howe Boobook

The Lord Howe Boobook , also known as the Lord Howe Morepork, was a bird in the true owl family endemic to Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea, part of New South Wales, Australia...

 may have been eliminated by the introduced Masked Owls. Various seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...

s were wiped out as breeding species on the main island, though they persist elsewhere. The giant Lord Howe Island stick insect

Dryococelus australis

Dryococelus australis, commonly known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect or tree lobster, is a species of stick insect which lives on the Lord Howe Island Group. It was thought to be extinct by 1930, only to be rediscovered in 2001...

 also became extinct on the main island, though subsequently a small population was discovered on Ball's Pyramid

Ball's Pyramid

Ball's Pyramid is an erosional remnant of a shield volcano and caldera that formed about 7 million years ago. Ball's Pyramid is southeast of Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean. It is high, while measuring only in length and across, making it the tallest volcanic stack in the world...

. Rats are also implicated in the population declines and extinctions of Lord Howe's endemic lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...

s, land snail

Land snail

A land snail is any of the many species of snail that live on land, as opposed to those that live in salt water and fresh water. Land snails are terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells, It is not always an easy matter to say which species are terrestrial, because some are more or less...

s and beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s.

Makambo Rock, north of Malabar Hill on Lord Howe Island, was named after the grounding of the Makambo near there.