“I Die”
In roughly 1947 or 1948, ships in the Strait of Malacca picked up a chilling SOS call from a Dutch freighter, the SS Ourang Medan. The Morse code message read: “All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This was followed by a final, two-word transmission: “I die.” When an American merchant ship, the Silver Star, raced to the location, they found the Ourang Medan drifting calmly.
Frozen in Fear
The boarding party discovered a scene from a nightmare. The entire crew was dead. Their bodies were sprawled on their backs, frozen with their faces twisted in absolute terror, mouths wide open, and eyes staring at the sun. Even the ship’s dog was dead, frozen in mid-growl. Strangely, there were no signs of violence, no wounds, and the ship itself was undamaged.
- The Explosion: Before the Silver Star could tow the ghost ship to port, a fire broke out in the Ourang Medan‘s cargo hold. The boarding party fled just before the ship exploded with tremendous force and sank, taking its secrets to the bottom.
- Nerve Gas: The leading theory is that the ship was smuggling hazardous chemical weapons (like Unit 731’s nerve gas) left over from WWII. A leak would explain the sudden death, the lack of injuries, and the terrified grimaces (as they suffocated).
- The Skeptics: No official records of a ship named Ourang Medan exist in the Dutch registry. Was it a “dark ship” conducting illegal operations, or simply a sailor’s yarn that got out of hand?
The Verdict: Whether a ghost story or a cover-up of a chemical accident, the image of a crew dying of fright on a calm sea remains one of the ocean’s darkest tales.