Makinami was a destroyer of the Yugumo class, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy at Maizuru Naval Arsenal. The hull was launched on 27 December 1941.
She was commissioned on 8 August 1942. Toyoji Hitomi became her captain on 18 August 1942, ten days after she entered service.
Her first recorded battle was the Battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942. That night Makinami was in the supply line, the part of the force given over to carrying supplies through the action.
She stayed in commission into the next year under the same early command. No further fight is attached to her name until the autumn of 1943. On 25 November 1943 she was at the Battle of Cape St. George. The battle sank her.
That loss is the end of the hull. Makinami, launched at Maizuru in the last days of 1941 and commissioned in August 1942, went down on 25 November 1943 in the Battle of Cape St. George, after having stood in the supply line at Tassafaronga a year before.