The Horror ... Oh, The Horror ...
Over the past half century, I’ve been researching one of the most complex of all nautical
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mysteries, the horrific tale of the SS Ourang Medan. I first heard this story as an Ordinary Seaman in the mess room on board an old tramp ship, the MV Port Halifax, whilst crossing the Pacific between Panama and Australia in 1960. Since then I’ve probably carried out more research into this frustrating yarn than anyone else, and I notice that whenever you Google the ship, my name comes up. But although I want to believe it all, (that’s the romantic side of being a writer) the more I dig the more phoney the whole thing begins to look, and I am amazed at the loose, sloppy re-interpretations of my research, tailored to please the credulous hordes who will allow no scepticism to spoil their Halloween spirit. These breath-taking inaccuracies abound across the web, revealing the silliness of people who obviously know little about marine history or architecture (note - there are NO photographs available of the Ourang Medan, chaps, so stop uploading shots of anachronistic vessels which don’t even fit the period! And that includes sailing ships!)
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| Otto Mielke's 1952 booklet Death Ship in The South Sea |
The earliest known reference to the ship and the incident is in the May 1952 issue of the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council, published by the United States Coast Guard under the title We All Sail Together. The word Ourang (also written Orang) is Malay or Indonesian for "man" or "person", whereas Medan is the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, giving an approximate translation of "Man from Medan". Accounts of the ship's accident, including my own, Cargo of Death, in the Fortean Times, and in Saga Magazine, have appeared in various books and magazines. The story is also re-told in my latest book, The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena. The factual accuracy and even the ship's existence, however, are unconfirmed, and details of the vessel's construction and history, if any, remain unknown. Searches for official registration and/or accident investigation records have proven unsuccessful. I know, because I carried these out, all the way from Amsterdam to Singapore. The story also crops up in a book entitled Invisible Horizons, by the late US writer Vincent Gaddis. According to the story, at some point in or around June 1947 (Gaddis and others list the approximate date as early February 1948), two American vessels navigating the Strait of Malacca, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, received distress messages from Dutch merchant ship Ourang Medan. A radio operator aboard the troubled vessel sent the following Morse code message:
“All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead."This was followed by some indecipherable Morse code, and one final grisly message: "I die."
Then, silence. When the Silver Star arrived and her crew boarded the apparently undamaged Ourang Medanthe ship was found littered with corpses (including the carcass of a dog) in what appeared to be terrified postures, arms outstretched towards the sun, with no survivors and no visible signs of injuries on the dead bodies. A fire then broke out in the ship's cargo hold, forcing the boarding parties to evacuate the Dutch freighter, thus preventing any further investigation. Soon after, the Ourang Medan was observed to explode and sink.
If you Google this story you will come across my own theories as to what may have caused all this horror, plus other theories, such as attack by a UFO, etc. etc. I am not going to go into all that again here, chapter and verse; it’s very complex. Look it up. My idea, and that of a 1950s German author, Otto Mielke, in his booklet Death Ship in The South Sea, is that if the vessel did exist, then it was probably carrying illegal poison gas and chemicals for use in Dutch Indonesia. Perhaps there was a leak, which would explain the rictus of horror on the faces of the corpses - but the explosion? I don’t know …But that’s still very far-fetched. However, one has to at least speculate to round such a thrillingly creepy legend up. I tried to track this elusive vessel down, but she isn’t listed in Lloyds Register of Shipping, and I spent a whole day in Amsterdam’s archives at the Dutch National Maritime Museum and we could find no such vessel. Nor could the maritime authorities in Singapore help, either. Oddly enough, though, I did receive a letter from the Dutch Navy asking what I might know about the case. I still wonder why. Perhaps those Flying Dutchmen love a good yarn, too.
So what leads me to believe that someone, somewhere, back in the late 40s/early 50s, was having us on? Was this a concocted story by some bored newspaper hack during the ‘Silly Season’? The answer may lie in the regularly reported presence of the two ships which are purported to have gone to the Ourang Medan’s rescue. They are, respectively, the SS City of Baltimore, and the SS Silver Star. So, these ships must have had some record of that awful event. Surely one of their crew would have come forward, and this story would not have been left simply to an obscure Munich German, Mielke, or the over-romantic Vincent Gaddis. It also appeared in the US magazine Fate in the 1950s. But where are those first hand primary sources? They don’t exist, and, with a degree of approximation, here’s why I believe we’re being duped. It’s all to do with those two ships, which were supposed to be in the region of the Straits of Malacca on that fateful day. Where they? Well, here’s some telling detail; first, the SS SILVER STAR. Here we must be careful, because there have been, and still are, several ships of this name.
According to the website www.mariners-l.co.uk/PARKN.htmlthe vessel we’re looking for is listed thus: 1943 SILVER STAR PARK, Park SS Co, Montreal.(Shell Canadian Tankers Ltd, Toronto)
12th Apr.1945 damaged by fire and collision at New York, repaired.
12th Apr.1945 damaged by fire and collision at New York, repaired.
Name changed to:
1945 SANTA CECILIA, Navebras S.A, Rio de Janeiro.
1945 SANTA CECILIA, Navebras S.A, Rio de Janeiro.
Name changed again:
1949 ILHA GRANDE, Brazilian Navy.
1960 Petroleo Brasileiro S.A, Rio de Janeiro.
9th Mar.1962 stranded on Manoel Luiz Reef on voyage Rio de Janeiro - Belem.
1949 ILHA GRANDE, Brazilian Navy.
1960 Petroleo Brasileiro S.A, Rio de Janeiro.
9th Mar.1962 stranded on Manoel Luiz Reef on voyage Rio de Janeiro - Belem.
Then we have this information from www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/grace.shtml
Santa Cecilia (3) 1942 1946 to United States Maritime Commission renamed Silver Star, 1947 reverted to Grace Line renamed Santa Juana, 1971 scrapped . 6,507
1946 to United States Maritime Commission renamed Silver Star, 1947 reverted to Grace Line renamed Santa Juana, 1971 scrapped
Or, alternatively, how about: http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Grace-Line/240846994
SANTA CECILIA
C2-S-B1 type
completed 8.1942
U.S. Maritime Commission
Federal SB & DD Co, Kearny, NJ, Hull # 233
4.1946- SILVER STAR, USMC
1947- SANTA JUANA, Grace Line, New York Scrapped Valencia 4.1971
So there was a Silver Star, but which Silver Star? They seem the same, under various names, but their careers, origin and fates vary. Which leads us to the SS City of Baltimore. Again, she wasn’t the first vessel to bear that name, but the one we’re interested in has the following listed details, courtesy of my good friend, the late Professor of Maritime History, Theodor Siersdorfer of Essen, Germany:
City of Baltimore(Original name: Steadfast) 8.424 GRT / 5.222 NRT Built 1919 Bethlehem Shipbuilding, Alameda, California. Owned by the Baltimore Mail Steamship Corporation, Baltimore. In 1941 she was taken over by the US Navy and re-named HEYWOOD. In 1945 she was returned to her owners and named City of Baltimore. In 1946 she was taken over yet again by the US Maritime Commission simply as ‘Baltimore’. She was no longer listed in Lloyd’s Register after 1959, and was presumably scrapped in the USA.
So, now we have two ships, their names seemingly adding some ‘authenticity’ to the horror of the Ourang Medan story. But here’s the conundrum: Where would these vessels have been plying their trade in 1947/8? Not, as the evidence suggests, anywhere near the Straits of Malacca, but I’m still keen to have anyone out there prove otherwise. The Santa Cecilia/Silver Star/Santa Juana was part of the Grace Lines fleet which appears, according to all existing literature, to have run voyages down the US West Coast and all the way down the Western South American Coast. This was their regular trading route.
The City of Baltimore was a Mail steamer with a regular route between Baltimore, Norfolk, Le Havre and Hamburg. So in both cases, the careers of these vessels were carried out thousands of miles away from Indonesia. I’m not suggesting that it can be proved they didn’t travel across the Pacific - maybe if we could access their log books we’d know - but then again, of we could see those log books then there would be a record of their meeting with the ill-fated Ourang Medan.
The City of Baltimore was a Mail steamer with a regular route between Baltimore, Norfolk, Le Havre and Hamburg. So in both cases, the careers of these vessels were carried out thousands of miles away from Indonesia. I’m not suggesting that it can be proved they didn’t travel across the Pacific - maybe if we could access their log books we’d know - but then again, of we could see those log books then there would be a record of their meeting with the ill-fated Ourang Medan.
I suspect Ourang Medan was a fictitious name. One on-line researcher has suggested this was possible because if the CIA were involved they often used the generic Atlas Steamship Company to register ships carrying unrecorded cargo to be used in covert operations. - See more at: www.travel-plan-idea.com/mystery-at-sea-ss-ourang-medan/#sthash.vSnY7sVV.dpufHowever, Atlas as a shipping company exists in various permutations, more historically as a major business out of Liverpool. (Black ops out of the Mersey? ) Who knows ...
Ah, well. A good old fo’c’sle yarn is always worth the re-telling over a glass of good rum. Will we ever know the truth? And if there is one, can we handle it? Start Googling, folks. It’s all out there, so you can make up your own minds. Might make a good movie though…