Description

Originally constructed and used as an ocean liner sailing back and forth across the Tasman Sea, the 5,000 ton steel-hulled SS Maheno was called into duty in 1905 to serve as a hospital ship transporting casualties back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne. She was eventually called to the UK and served the wounded soldiers in Europe, delivering them from France to England via the English Channel.

At the end of the war, the SS Maheno headed home to New Zealand to resume carting perfectly healthy humans back and forth across the waters, and in July, 1935, she was sold to an Osaka shipbreaker. Unfortunately, she would never reach her new home, for there was a storm brewing.