According to widely circulated reports, in June of 1947 or, according to alternate accounts, February of 1948 multiple ships traversing the trade routes of the straits of Malacca, which is located between the sun drenched shores of Sumatra and Malaysia, claimed to have picked up a series of SOS distress signals. The unknown ships message was as simple as it was disturbing:
All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead. This communication was followed by a burst of indecipherable Morse code, then a final, grim message: I die. This cryptic proclamation was followed by tomb-like silence.
The chilling distress call was picked up by two American ships as well as British and Dutch listening posts. The men manning these posts managed to triangulate the source of these broadcasts and deduced that they were likely emanating from a Dutch freighter known as the SS Ourang Medan, which was navigating the straits of Malacca.
A conscripted American merchant ship called the Silver Star was closest to the presumed location of the Ourang Medan. Originally christened Santa Cecilia by the Grace Line (W. R. Grace & Co.), the vessel had been renamed the Silver Star when the United States Maritime Commission drafted it in 1946.
Noting the terrified urgency in the message that came over the airwaves, the Captain and crew of the Silver Star wasted no time in changing their course in an effort to assist the apparently incapacitated ship. Within hours, the Silver Star caught sight of the Ourang Medan rising and falling in the choppy waters of the Malacca Strait.
As the merchant craft neared the ill-omened vessel, the crew noticed that there was no sign of life on the deck. The Americans attempted to hail the Dutch crew to no avail. Thats when the Captain of the Silver Star decided to assemble a boarding party. As they left the safe haven of the Silver Star, these unfortunate souls had no idea that they were about to walk into a living nightmare.
As soon as they boarded the Ourang Medan, the men swiftly realized that the distress calls were not an exaggeration. The decks of the vessel were littered with the corpses of the Dutch crew; their eyes wide, their arms grasping at unseen assailants, their faces twisted into revolting visages of agony and horror. Even the ships dog was dead; its once intimidating snarl frozen into a ghastly grimace.
The boarding party found the Captains remains on the bridge, while his officers cadavers were strewn about the wheelhouse and chartroom. The communications officer was still at his post, as dead as the rest, his fingertips resting on the telegraph. All of the corpses, according to reports, bore the same terrified, wide-eyed expressions as the crew on deck.
Below deck, search party members found cadres of corpses in the boiler room, but almost as disturbing as this grim find was the fact that the American crew members claimed to have felt an extreme chill in the nadir of the hold, even though the temperature outside was a scorching 110°F. While the search team could see clear evidence that the crew of the Ourang Medan suffered profoundly at the moment of their deaths, they could find no overt evidence of injury or foul play on the swiftly decaying corpses. Nor could they spy any damage to the ship itself.
The Captain of the Silver Star decided that they would tether themselves to the Ourang Medan and tow it back to port, but as soon as the crew attached the tow line to the Dutch ship they noticed ominous billows of smoke pouring up from the lower decks, in specific the Number 4 hold.
The boarding party scarcely had a chance to cut the towline and make it back to the Silver Star before the Ourang Medan exploded with such tremendous force that it lifted herself from the water and swiftly sank.
The crew watched the Dutch vessel disappear beneath the briny depths, no doubt breathing deep sighs of relief that the towline had not dragged them into the sea as well.
The watery grave that claimed the Ourang Medan effectively removed the freighter from the face of the Earth and forced it directly into the realm of myths and legends. This, of course, has made it one of the most enduring and intriguing maritime mysterious of the modern age, leaving us to ask the most basic question
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OURANG MEDAN?
While rumors about the Silver Stars grisly discovery circulated wildly along the trade routes of the East Indies, the first official account of the event would not be printed until May of 1952, in the form of the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council, which was published by the United States Coast Guard. The testimony therein described the alarming state of the Dutch crewmen, even going so far as to state:
Their frozen faces were upturned to the sun
staring, as if in fear
the mouths were gaping open and the eyes staring.
