Mysteries of the Sea: The Fate of the Man of Medan
Did the Entire Crew of This 1940s Ghost Ship Perish, or Is the SS Ourang Medan Just a Tall Tale?
The legends of the sea are diverse and many. From tales of sirens to sea serpents, mythology and superstition have long been the favoured tale of the old sailor. However, perhaps the most popular of all, and most open to retelling and embellishment, is the tale of the ghost ship. While the Flying Dutchman may be the most famous of these yarns, that is not to say there haven’t been authentic stories of ships abandoned by their crew in mysterious circumstances. These real life events have served as inspiration for many ghostly tales of terror at sea. One such story is the account of the SS Ourang Medan, a ship that was apparently found adrift without a soul on board… if it ever existed at all.
As the most familiar tellings of the story go, it was either in February of 1948 or June of 1947 that a series of distress calls were sent from the Dutch merchant ship the Ourang Medan in the Far-East, the location of the vessel given as the Straits of Malacca which lay between Sumatra and Indonesia. The ship, whose name translates from Malay as “Man of Medan” was a cargo steamer of some 5,000 tonnes and said to be 40-years old at the time of the incident, having passed through a dozen…
