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Was the ominous tale of the S.S. Ourang Medan a mariner's seafaring tale designed to scare, frighten or dissuade or a genuine ill-fated ship?

3 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Maritime history is full of tales of ghost ships and sea serpents. Not all of these are true and accurate accounts or if they are, they are prone to exaggerations and embellishment. Believers and skeptics have hotly debated stories like these. While some of these tales originate centuries ago, one of the more curious tales is mere decades old. This is the story of the S.S. Ourang Medan Did a mysterious tragedy occur on the S.S. Ourang Medan or is it all just a legend? Ominous Radio Message From An Unknown Ship Depending on which report is accurate, a curious radio message was received by numerous ships traveling along the Straits of Malacca, situated around Sumatra and Malaysia in either June 1947 or as late as February 1948. At the time, the origins of this message – an SOS – were not known. The message itself was divided into two parts, separated by Morse code that could not be deciphered. Those that received this message insisted that the transcript went: All Officers, including the Captain, are dead. Lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead. … I die. Nothing else was transmitted after this chilling conclusion. Two ships, both American, picked up the messages and felt compelled to investigate. With the help of British and Dutch listening posts, the coordinates of the vessel thought to be transmitting were triangulated. It was the Dutch freighter S.S. Ourang Medan. An American merchant ship, the Silver Star, was sent to the coordinates. Given the content of the distress calls, the Captain of the Silver Star wasted no time in navigating to the new heading. Several hours later, the look-out on board the Silver Star spotted the stricken Ourang Medan. Even as the rescue ship pulled alongside, no signs of life could be seen visually. All efforts to contact the crew failed, forcing the Captain of the Silver Star to organize a search party. Something Horrific Happened On Board The S.S. Ourang Medan The moment that the search party boarded, it was obvious that the messages were horribly accurate. Corpses of the Dutch crew littered the decks of the Ourang Medan. The victims’ eyes stared wide with horror, and their faces lay twisted in sheer terror. Their arms had tried to fight off something. Not even the ship’s dog escaped the terror of whatever had taken place. The canine was discovered to be in the midst of snarling at the cause. The captain was found, as one might have expected, on his bridge. The remainder of the bridge officers were found in the wheelhouse and chartroom. The radio operator, who presumably sent the distress call, was found at his station. The engineering crew was also found at their stations with precisely the same expressions on their faces. Related: Legends and Sightings of the Flying Dutchman During the search efforts, the rescue party noticed several things that struck them as odd. The local temperature was in excess of 100°F but members of the team felt an ominous chill coming from somewhere. Another mystery was the conditions of the victims. All of them had suffered but none had any injuries to note. They were also decaying quicker than they should. The ship itself didn’t appear to have suffered any damage. When the search party returned to the Silver Star, they quickly decided to tow the Ourang Medan for salvage. It was only when they tethered the ships together that they discovered smoke below decks, specifically in the No. 4 cargo hold. Within seconds after they severed the tow rope, the Ourang Medan exploded. The sheer force lifted it out of the water before it sank to the seafloor. U.S. Coast Guard Report The first official mention of the incident came from the United States Coast Guard in May 1952. In addition to the witness testimony of the state of the crewmembers, the account added grim details: their frozen faces upturned to the sun… staring, as if in fear… the mouths were gaping open and the eyes staring. Fact or Legend? One of the arguments that counters the truth of the event came from the registry of the Ourang Medan. Officially, it appears as that the ship never existed, although the Silver Star was a real vessel. But at the time the Ourang Medan was supposedly foundering, the Silver Star was operating under another registration: Santa Juana. The Grace Line shipping company had bought rights to the vessel and renamed it. In contrast, those that believe in the Ourang Medan story insist that the registration of the ship originated in Sumatra. At the time, Sumatra was a Dutch colony that formed part of the Dutch East Indies. In Indonesian, Ourang means ‘man’ and Medan is the largest city on the island of Sumatra. Hence the name Ourang Medan literally means ‘Man from Medan.’ There are no records that back up this ascertain. Even Lloyd’s Shipping registers and the Dictionary of Disasters at sea 1824-1962 has found no mention of the Ourang Medan. The Booklet “Das Totenschiffin der Sü...

Tragedy on the S.S. Ourang Medan - Fact or Legend? - Historic Mysteries