# Silvio Scherli and the Italian/Triestine side of the "Ourang Medan" story

File names are given in brackets below. Of these, `ilpiccolo_19401016_p3.pdf`, `ilpiccolo_19410205_p3.pdf`, `illustrazione_1940_49_n51.jpg` and `gu_19301004_scherli_decree.png` are in `images/pages/`, `ilpiccolo_solr_Ourang.json` is in `sources/search-logs/` and the helper script is `code/scherli_ilpiccolo_solr.py`; working copies of the other fetched texts, page images, crops and transcriptions are not included in this folder.

## 0. Short answers

1. **Silvio Scherli was a real person.** Silvio Scherl / Scherli (byline "Silvio Scherl-Scherli"), of Trieste; very probably the "Silvio Scherk fu Giuseppe, nato a Trieste il 29 aprile 1901" whose surname the Prefect of Trieste "reduced" to *Scherli* in 1930; a merchant-marine radio officer ("ufficiale marconista mercantile", civil register, Oct 1943; "marconista triestino", Dec 1950), travel/photo-journalist (1933) and self-described "free lance journalist" (1954); married Gabriella Zanini in Trieste on 11 Sept 1943; family address Largo Barriera Vecchia 16 (his 1954 letterhead; mother and brother listed there in the 1952 city directory); died in Trieste on 7 March 1985 aged 83 (death notice and civil register, *Il Piccolo* 9 March 1985).
2. **The story is his.** The earliest printing anywhere is his own signed feature "Il mistero dell'«Ourang-Medan»", *Le Ultime Notizie – Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto* (Trieste), 16 Oct 1940, p. III, dated to "la notte del 13 novembre 1939", ~200 miles SE of the Solomons, with the same two photographs later reused in 1948. Ten days later the paper boasted it had been "reproduced by all the newspapers of the Kingdom and will also be published in the United States and in other countries"; it reached Austrian papers (20/29 Oct 1940, citing "Piccolo di Trieste"), the Associated Press / British papers (21–22 Nov 1940, datelined Trieste), *L'Illustrazione Italiana* (8 Dec 1940), *7 jours* (France, 29 Dec 1940 and 7 Sept 1941), *China Mail* (27 Feb 1941). A sequel in *Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto* of 5 Feb 1941 invented a sole survivor found in Fiji.
3. **The 1948 Dutch serial is a translation/reworking of the 1940 article plus the 1941 sequel**, with the date moved to June 1947, the place to the Marshall Islands and the survivor to Taongi. The Dutch SOS "S.O.S. from ship ourang medan stop pse ships with SW get urgent DH medico stop" is the 1940 Italian "S.O.S. de Ourang-Medan pse SW DH medico urgent" with the same Italian gloss. **No Italian printing of the first-person account in 1947 was found**; the Il Piccolo group archive (which includes the *Giornale di Trieste* 1947–54 and the Allied *Giornale alleato* 1945–47) has no "Ourang" hit after 5 Feb 1941, and the first post-war Italian reappearance located by anyone is *L'Illustrazione del Popolo*, 31 Oct 1948 (per Paijmans), i.e. after the Dutch printings.
4. What De locomotief says about Scherli: it never states his profession; it calls him "de auteur" who "vertoeft thans te Triest" and "verzekert, voor de authenticiteit van dit verhaal in te staan", while a sub-headline wrongly calls him "De Enige Overlevende". The survivor is nameless ("Zijn ware naam mag ik niet vertellen. Hij was een Duitser"), a first mate signed on in Shanghai without papers, who died after five days on Taongi and was "buried beside the old palm in the cemetery behind the mission building"; the story reached the author through a letter of "a Franciscan missionary of the island Tcangi [Taongi], Marshall Islands". The only personal name is on the captain's passport: "Alfred Schutzwald uit Hamburg". Every checkable element fails (Taongi is uninhabited and has never had a mission; no US torpedo boat "W 716" existed in 1939; the "exclusive" 1940 photographs were re-used for an alleged 1947 event; hold numbers, dates, coordinates and casualty counts contradict each other across versions).
5. **The 1940 British/AP version ties directly to Trieste and to Scherli**: it appeared 5 weeks after his article, with the same particulars (SOS "send doctor – urgent" then "send a warship"; twelve bodies, three of them deck officers; SE of the Solomons; explosion, fire, sinking), and the Yorkshire Evening Post/AP copy was datelined Trieste (Hargraves 2015; Skeptoid 2020).

## 1. Was Silvio Scherli a real person? Biographical evidence (chronological)

All items below are primary sources unless marked otherwise.

| Date | Source | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 4 Oct 1930 | *Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia* n. 232, decree of the Prefect of Trieste (archive.org item `19301004_232`, leaf n8; page image checked: [ia_more/gu19301004_n8.jpg], crop [img/gu_19301004_scherli_decree.png]) | "Veduta la domanda presentata dal sig. Silvio Scherk fu Giuseppe, nato a Trieste il 29 aprile 1901 e residente a Trieste, corso Garibaldi n. 13, e diretta ad ottenere … la riduzione del suo cognome in forma italiana e precisamente in «Scherli» … Decreta: Il cognome del sig. Silvio Scherk è ridotto in «Scherli»." (Printed "Scherk", verified on the image. The 1934 Trieste directory lists both "Scherk, ora Scherli" and "Scherl, Scherlì" among reduced surnames [ia_more/Guida_TS-1934_djvu.txt, l. 55481–55482], and a 1902 *Piccolo* item spells the same man "Giuseppe Scherk"/"Giuseppe Scherl" in one paragraph [ia_fts_scherk.json, item Piccolo_1902-01-04_1ed], so Scherk/Scherl were interchangeable spellings. Identity with the journalist is very probable — same first name, Trieste, age 83 at death in March 1985 fits birth on 29 April 1901 — but not formally proven.) |
| 3 Oct 1920, 9 Oct 1921, 5 Feb 1933 | *Il Piccolo* (archive.org `Piccolo_1920-10-03`, `Piccolo_1921-10-09`, `Piccolo_1933-02-05`) | A boxer "Silvio Scherl" (U.S.T. / Dopolavoro Ivancich), regional light-heavyweight champion. Whether this is the same man is unknown (the 2024 blog doubts it). |
| 15 Jan 1933 | *L'Illustrazione Italiana*, anno LX n. 3 (archive.org `RAV0070589_1933_00003`) | Travel feature "PAESI E COSTUMI – MACABRI RITI FUNERARI NELL'INDIA … (Fotografie dell'autore) SILVIO SCHERL". |
| 5 Feb 1933 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1933-02-05`, l. 3639–3647) | "Scritti di viaggi d'un triestino. Il concittadino Silvio Scherl, che ha la fortuna — beato lui — di andare a spasso per il mondo, pubblica sull'Illustrazione Italiana e sulla Scena Illustrata due interessanti articoli di viaggi che riflettono la sua originale vita di…" ("Travel writings of a Triestine. Our fellow-citizen Silvio Scherl, who is lucky enough to roam the world, publishes in L'Illustrazione Italiana and La Scena Illustrata two interesting travel articles reflecting his original life of…"). |
| 1935–1938 | Ancestry NY passenger/crew lists as reported by the blog *Silvio Scherli's "Tragedies of the Sea"* (Aug 2024) [tragedies_blog_scherli.txt] — **not verifiable by me (Ancestry/FamilySearch/MyHeritage/Geneanet all blocked, 403)** | Radio operator of *Conte di Savoia* (Naples–New York, May 1935), *Conte Grande* (Trieste–New York, July–Aug 1935), *Rex* (Genoa–New York, Sept 1938); born "around 1901/1902". Skeptoid #756 (2020) likewise reports an Ancestry record: "born in 1901 and did make his home in Trieste … a large number of ship departure and arrival records". |
| 16 Oct 1940 – 24 Apr 1941 | *Le Ultime Notizie – Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto* (archivio.ilpiccolo.it, title code TO00208776) | Series "I drammi del mare" signed SILVIO SCHERL-SCHERLI (see §2). Also a signed political piece on 2 Nov 1940 ("SILVIO SCHERL - SCHERLI", `Piccolo_1940-11-02`, l. 1906). |
| 27 Nov 1940 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1940-11-27`, l. 7710–7723) | Editor's reply to a reader from Gorizia who had asked the writer's age and photograph: "L'età degli scrittori non si chiede … Non pubblichiamo le fotografie dei nostri scrittori … La storia del panfilo «Yohore» è vera, come sono veri tutti i racconti di Silvio Scherli." ("The story of the yacht Yohore is true, as all of Silvio Scherli's tales are true.") |
| 12 Sep 1943 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1943-09-12`) | "ASTERISCHI. Nozze Scherli-Zanini. La gentile signorina Gabriella Zanini e Silvio Scherli hanno ieri contratto matrimonio a San Giusto … [testimoni] suo fratello, capitano medico veterinario Vittorio Scherli e il capitano Diodato Belohradsky". |
| 1 Oct 1943 | *Il Piccolo*, "Stato civile" (`Piccolo_1943-10-01`, l. 2146–2148) | "Scherli Silvio, ufficiale marconista mercantile, con Zanini Gabriella, casalinga" — **profession: merchant-navy radio officer**. |
| 22 Sep 1943 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1943-09-22`) | Brother "dott. Vittorio Scherli, medico vet. provinciale di Spalato". |
| 16 & 30 Dec 1950 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1950-12-16` l. 5862–5864; `Piccolo_1950-12-30` l. 5016–5041) | "ci scrive da Londra il concittadino Silvio Scherli"; "il marconista triestino Silvio Scherli ci manda da[l] porto spagnolo [Gijón] questo racconto sulla tragedia del «Bruciatutto» … Silvio Scherli era a bordo della nave, ed ha quindi assistito a tutte le fasi di quel dramma sul mare" — i.e. in Dec 1950 he was serving as radio operator on the Italian steamer *Bruciatutto*. |
| 1952 | *Guida di Trieste 1952* (archive.org `Guida_TS-1952`, l. 130494–130519, 428809) | "Scherli Silvio, comm., via Vasari, 11" (comm. = presumably commerciante); "Scherli v[edova] Anna, priv., largo Barr. Vecchia, 16"; "Scherli dott. Vittorio, capo Ufficio Veterinario alla Presidenza di Zona, ab. largo Barriera vecchia, 16" — the widow (his mother, cf. "fu Giuseppe" in 1930 and "Scherl v. Anna" in the 1934 directory) and the brother live at the address on his 1954 letterhead. |
| 25 Feb 1954 / 26 Mar 1954 | UCSF Industry Documents Library, American Tobacco Co. files (`https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lrwp0215`, OCR `https://download.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/l/r/w/p/lrwp0215/lrwp0215.ocr`; reply `…#id=krwp0215`) [ucsf_lrwp0215.pdf, img/ucsf_lrwp0215_p1.png, ucsf_krwp0215.pdf] | Letterhead "SILVIO SCHERLI, TEL. 93847 / 32736, TRIESTE (213), Largo Barriera Vecchia, 16"; to Paul Hahn, president of American Tobacco: "I [am a] free lance journalist collaborator to the leading European papers and magazines"; offers, for US$780, "research material" on lung-cancer casualties in Italy, Germany, Austria, Monte Carlo, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, England, Holland… Reply of 26 Mar 1954 (W. T. Hoyt) refers him to Alan Campbell-Johnson, 35 Old Bond Street, London. |
| 1954–1955 | Ancestry crew lists per the 2024 blog (unverified) | Radio operator of the tanker *Esso Pittsburgh* (Genoa, Aruba, New York, Wilmington). |
| 5 Jul 1958 | *Illustrated London News* p. 17 (archive.org `sim_illustrated-london-news_1958-07-05_233_6213`) [iln_19580705_djvu.txt] | Photograph of the Nagasaki peace statue "(Copyright Silvio Scherli.)" |
| 28 Sep 1959 | *Export Trade* (New York), quoted in Wigglesworth & Ashwell, *Readings in Policy and Practice for International Business* (1959), p. 379 (Google Books id 3CYUAQAAMAAJ, snippet fetched verbatim) | "Scherli's report on Trieste (EXPORT TRADE, September 28) brought back pleasant memories of fifteen years of my youth spent in Trieste. In those days, before 1914, Trieste was the only port of the land-locked Austrian empire…" — a **trade report on the port of Trieste, not an Ourang Medan article**. Wikipedia, the Skittish Library and Skeptoid all repeat the claim that he wrote about the ship in 1959; the snippet shows this is a misreading. |
| 6 Mar 1963 | *Il Piccolo* classified (`Piccolo_1963-03-06`, l. 14502–14505) | Warehouses to let, "Telef. 42824, Silvio Scherli". |
| 9 Aug 1975 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1975-08-09`, l. 4087–4097) | Article on the Nagasaki bomb signed "Silvio Scherli". |
| 9 Mar 1985 | *Il Piccolo* (`Piccolo_1985-03-09`, l. 5824 and death notice) | Civil register, deaths of 7 March: "Scherli Silvio, 83". Death notice: wife Gabriella, son Thomas with Carmen, sister Clelia with Pietro Ginanni Fantuzzi, brother Vittorio, grandchildren Susy, Lamberto/Bianca, Antonio/Graziella; funeral 9 March 1985 from the Cappella dell'Ospedale Maggiore, Trieste ("Trieste - Roma"). |

Not him: the rower Giorgio Scherli (European double-sculls champion 1939 with Ettore Broschi; many *Il Piccolo* hits 1939–40), the trap-shooter Natale Scherli (1941–57), the gymnast Germana Scherli (1954–57), and the "Vittorio Skerl di Nicolò, b. 1899" of a 1929 name-change decree (different father; the journalist's brother Vittorio is a veterinarian).

Modern secondary accounts consulted: Estelle Hargraves, "The Myth of the Ourang Medan Ghost Ship, 1940", *The Skittish Library*, 29 Dec 2015 (`https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/the-myth-of-the-ourang-medan-ghost-ship-1940/`) [skittish.txt]; Brian Dunning, Skeptoid #756 "The Death Ship SS Ourang Medan", 1 Dec 2020 (`https://skeptoid.com/episodes/756`) [skeptoid_756.txt]; Theo Paijmans, "Death Ship: The Final Voyage of the Ourang Medan", *Fortean Times* Feb 2021, pp. 32–37 (archive.org `fortean-times-08.2021` / `paijmans-ourang-medan`) [paijmans_djvu.txt]; blog *Silvio Scherli's "Tragedies of the Sea"* (`https://tragedies-of-the-sea.blogspot.com/`, Aug 2024) [tragedies_blog_scherli.txt]; en/it Wikipedia "Ourang Medan" wikitext [wiki_en_wikitext.json, wiki_it_wikitext.json].

## 2. The Italian genesis of the story (1940–41)

### 2.1 *Le Ultime Notizie – Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto*, Wed 16 Oct 1940, p. III — "Il mistero dell'«Ourang-Medan»", signed SILVIO SCHERL-SCHERLI

Source: archivio.ilpiccolo.it (free OCR-searchable archive of the Il Piccolo group). Viewer URL pattern: `https://archivio.ilpiccolo.it/sfoglio/aviator/aviator.php?newspaper=TO00208776&edition=piccolo&issue=19401016&startpage=3`; page PDF `https://dshare-deploy.grupponem.it/archivio-storico/ilpiccolo/_deploy/TO00208776/19401016/piccolo/pdf/00003.pdf` [ilpiccolo_19401016_p3.pdf; full transcription made from the page image: transcription_ilpiccolo_1940-10-16.txt; OCR: ilpiccolo_ocr_TO00208776_19401016_p3.txt]. Two photographs: "…sul ponte di comando trovammo il corpo del secondo ufficiale…" (dead officer with binoculars) and "L'«Ourang-Medan» sta per inabissarsi" (ship keeling over) — the same two pictures reappear in *L'Illustrazione Italiana* 8 Dec 1940 and in *De locomotief* 3 Feb 1948 [img/locomotief_19480203_photo_officer.png, img/locomotief_19480203_photo_wreck.png, img/illustrazione_1940_49_n51.jpg].

Key passages (Italian, then translation):

> "La notte del 13 novembre 1939 a circa duecento miglia a sud-est del gruppo delle Salomone mentre si navigava verso il canale di Panama, intercettammo la seguente segnalazione: «S. O. S. de Ourang-Medan pse SW DH medico urgent», che tradotto in lingua chiara vuol dire: «S. O. S. del piroscafo Ourang-Medan, preghiamo navi con installazioni onde corte ottenerci urgente consulto medico». Già per se stessa la segnalazione era molto strana inquantochè il marconista dell'«Ourang-Medan» aveva fatto precedere la sigla «DH medico» dal segnale di soccorso «S. O. S.» …"
> — "On the night of 13 November 1939, about two hundred miles south-east of the Solomon group, while sailing towards the Panama Canal, we intercepted the following signal: 'S.O.S. de Ourang-Medan pse SW DH medico urgent', which in plain language means: 'S.O.S. from the steamer Ourang-Medan, we beg ships with short-wave installations to obtain urgent medical advice for us'. The signal was in itself very strange, because the Ourang-Medan's radio operator had put the distress signal S.O.S. before the code 'DH medico' …"

> "Le stazioni mediche di «Funkarzt Elbe Weser» della Germania, il centro medico di Roma, «S. Marie-de-la Mer Radio» (Francia) risposero quasi simultaneamente … Anche l'«Australian Broadcasting Company», sull'onda commerciale dei 600 metri ripeteva per radiofonia: Silenzio! Silenzio! S.O.S. dell'«Ourang-Medan» sui mari della Micronesia!"
> (Real radio-medical services are named — the German *Funkarzt* Elbe-Weser service, Rome's CIRM, the French Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer coast station — the professional colouring of a radio officer. Note "mari della Micronesia" although the ship is placed SE of the Solomons, i.e. Melanesia; in 1948 the ship was moved to the Marshalls, which are in Micronesia.)

> "Dopo qualche minuto l'«Ourang-Medan», con l'apparecchio ausiliario, rispose: «Probabilmente secondo ufficiale morto, altri membri dell'equipaggio pure uccisi. Annullate consulto medico. S. O. S. urgente assistenza nave guerra. S. O. S. lat... long... punto stimato. Equipaggio ha...». E qui improvvisamente la comunicazione cessò del tutto dileguandosi con una serie di punti e di linee senza alcun significato ed inintelligibili."
> — "…'Probably second officer dead, other crew members also killed. Cancel medical advice. S.O.S. urgent assistance warship. S.O.S. lat… long… estimated position. Crew has…'. And here the communication suddenly ceased altogether, dissolving into a meaningless, unintelligible series of dots and dashes."

> "Le congetture … erano le più disparate: Ammutinamento? caso di pirateria? rivolta di forzati? (l'«Ourang-Medan» l'anno prima trasportava un carico di forzati dall'Inghilterra all'Australia). … Nel frattempo una torpediniera americana e precisamente la «W 716» comunicava che aveva dirottato e sperava raggiungere l'«Ourang-Medan» entro le 24 ore. … la torpediniera americana comunicava per radiofonia: «We are coming at full speed»."
> — "Mutiny? piracy? a convicts' revolt? (the year before, the Ourang-Medan had carried a cargo of convicts from England to Australia) … Meanwhile an American torpedo boat, namely the 'W 716', signalled that she had altered course and hoped to reach the Ourang-Medan within 24 hours … 'We are coming at full speed'."

> "Infatti verso le ore 14 avvistammo all'orizzonte una grossa nave, senza bandiera a poppa, leggermente inclinata a tribordo e con l'elica immota. … Qua e là cadaveri di marinai ingombravano la coperta. Notammo che non uno di codesti cadaveri portava i segni di ferita o comunque avesse gli abiti chiazzati di sangue. … Sul ponte di comando trovammo il corpo del secondo ufficiale. … Contammo in tutto dodici cadaveri dei quali tre ufficiali di coperta. E gli altri? Una nave come l'«Ourang-Medan» doveva avere almeno 40 persone di equipaggio. … Proprio in quel momento uno scoppio rintronò in una delle stive … Una colonna di fumo bluastra, come un enorme bengala, usciva dalla boccaporta numero due. … Il giorno dopo, all'alba, l'incendio … erasi spento. Ci avvicinammo, sotto vento, e potemmo assistere al suo lento ma inesorabile inabissamento."
> — "…a large ship, no flag at the stern, listing slightly to starboard, propeller still … Here and there sailors' corpses cluttered the deck. We noticed that not one of these corpses bore signs of wounds or had blood-stained clothes … On the bridge we found the body of the second officer … We counted twelve corpses in all, three of them deck officers. And the others? A ship like the Ourang-Medan must have had at least 40 crew … Just then an explosion thundered in one of the holds … A column of bluish smoke, like an enormous flare, came out of hatch number two … The next day at dawn the fire had burned out. We approached from leeward and watched her slow but inexorable sinking."

> "Del mistero dell'«Ourang-Medan» non restava che una collezione di fotografie, molte delle quali passate in esclusività alla Marina da guerra americana a cui incombe il non facile compito di risolvere l'enigma. SILVIO SCHERL-SCHERLI"
> — "Of the mystery of the Ourang-Medan nothing remained but a collection of photographs, many of which passed in exclusivity to the American Navy, on which falls the not-easy task of solving the enigma."

The narrator never names his own ship or its nationality; the rescuing vessel is simply "we" (an unnamed merchant ship whose master orders two boats away). The 1941 sequel calls the 1940 narrator "un ufficiale giuliano che fu spettatore al suo drammatico epilogo" ("an officer from Venezia Giulia who witnessed its dramatic ending").

### 2.2 The paper's own syndication note, 26 Oct 1940, p. III [ilpiccolo_ocr_TO00208776_19401026_p3.txt]

> "Pubblichiamo il secondo articolo di Silvio Scherl-Scherli sui Drammi del mare. Il primo, Il mistero dell'Ourang Medan, pubblicato il 16 corrente sulle Ultime Notizie, è stato riprodotto da tutti i giornali del Regno e sarà pubblicato pure negli Stati Uniti e sui giornali di altri Paesi."
> — "We publish the second article by Silvio Scherl-Scherli on the Dramas of the Sea. The first, The Mystery of the Ourang Medan, published on the 16th inst. in the Ultime Notizie, has been reproduced by all the newspapers of the Kingdom and will also be published in the United States and in the newspapers of other countries."

This is the paper announcing, in October 1940, that the story was being sold abroad — which is exactly what happened next (Austria, AP/UK, France).

### 2.3 Sequel: *Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto*, Wed 5 Feb 1941, p. III — "Luce sulla misteriosa fine del piroscafo «Ourang Medan» – Il ritrovamento di un superstite della tragica nave salvato dagli indigeni di un'isola della Malesia"

Unsigned, with a fake foreign dateline "VITI LEVU (Figi), 5" (a same-day dispatch from a British colony to a Trieste paper in February 1941, with no agency credit, is not credible). Page PDF `…/TO00208776/19410205/piccolo/pdf/00003.pdf` [ilpiccolo_19410205_p3.pdf; full transcription from the image: transcription_ilpiccolo_1941-02-05.txt]. Key points:

> "La misteriosa e tragica fine della nave australiana «Ourang Medan» (L'uomo Nero), che appassionò il pubblico nel racconto di un ufficiale giuliano che fu spettatore al suo drammatico epilogo, è stata svelata. … Come i lettori ricorderanno, il giorno 19 novembre 1939 la nave australiana «Ourang Medan» chiedeva per radio «S.O.S. urgente bisogno assistenza medica, secondo ufficiale ucciso...»."
> (Now 19 Nov 1939, not 13 Nov; the ship is "Australian" and its name is glossed "The Black Man"; the sub-title says the survivor was rescued on "an island of Malaysia" while the text says Fiji.)

> "Lo scorso mese di dicembre 1940 si presentò al Governatore di Viti Levu, isola del gruppo delle Figi, un indigeno della costa settentrionale dell'isola e gli raccontò che da oltre un anno la sua tribù ospita un uomo bianco che fu raccolto moribondo a bordo di una scialuppa che sulle fiancate portava il nome della nave «Ourang Medan»."
> — "Last December 1940 a native of the north coast presented himself to the Governor of Viti Levu, Fiji, and told him that for over a year his tribe had been sheltering a white man picked up dying in a lifeboat bearing the name Ourang Medan."

The survivor's tale: sailed from Singapore "con un carico di 2500 casse il cui contenuto non era precisato sulla polizza di carico o meglio era falsato" for a West-Australian port; "Il comandante era pure proprietario della nave"; crew of Malays and Indians; ordered on to Panama; bosun dies on "11 ottobre" opening a ventilator; "Il giorno 13 fu fatale": two stokers and two engineers die welding "il fondo della stiva n. 4"; "Centinaia e centinaia di grossi topi … uscivano a frotte da ogni dove"; the second officer, binoculars in his left hand, dies mid-sentence on the bridge; the engine-room bosun comes back from the chartroom shouting "tutti morti, tutti morti… fuggite"; two boats leave (11 men and 4 men); the narrator's three Malay companions die one after another; after two weeks water and biscuit run out, "Poi non ricordo più nulla". Finding of the Governor's inquiry: at Singapore the ship had loaded "una grande partita clandestina di spiriti di nitroglicerina nonchè una partita di cianuro di potassio solido e liquido e numerose casse di acido solforico"; the crates broke with the rolling, "l'alcool evaporò lasciando la nitroglicerina esplosiva"; the ship "anni prima era adibito al trasporto dei forzati". "Non si è mai saputo chi fosse il destinatario della merce."

Every ingredient of the 1948 second and third instalments (survivor in a lifeboat, companions dying one by one, rats swarming out, hold 4, sulphuric acid and nitroglycerine, alcohol evaporating to leave explosive nitroglycerine, the crooked owner-captain, false papers, the story told to an authority figure) is already here. The 1941 French re-sale in *7 jours* (7 Sept 1941, Gallica ark:/12148/bpt6k32533346, p. 9; ContentSearch snippets [gallica_cs_bpt6k32533346.xml, gallica_7jours_1941.xml]) adds a real name for verisimilitude: "Sir Harry Charles Luke, gouverneur anglais des îles Fidji" (Luke really was Governor of Fiji 1938–42) and the headline "LES MEMBRES DE L'ÉQUIPAGE SONT MORTS ASPHYXIÉS, UN PAR UN, ET LE BATEAU MAUDIT A ÉTÉ COULÉ PAR SA CARGAISON"; the first French printing, *7 jours* 29 Dec 1940 (ark:/12148/bpt6k32533027, p. 6) has "torpilleur américain n° 716", "200 milles au sud-est du groupe des îles Salomon", "Funkartz Elbe Weser", "Centro Medico Roma".

### 2.4 Other 1940–41 printings (all downstream of Trieste)

- Austrian papers 20 and 29 Oct 1940 citing "Piccolo di Trieste" (Paijmans, FT Feb 2021, notes 27–28: *(Österreichische) Volks-Zeitung*, Vienna, 29 Oct 1940). ANNO (Austrian newspapers online) was blocked for me by a Cloudflare challenge [anno/*.txt], so not re-verified.
- *Yorkshire Evening Post* 21 Nov 1940 p. 5 and *Daily Mirror* 22 Nov 1940 p. 11 (AP). The Mirror clipping (archive.org `daily-mirror-fri-nov-22-1940`, viewed [img/daily_mirror_19401122.jpg]): "CREW DIES IN SOS MYSTERY … off the Solomon Islands … 'Send doctor—urgent' … 'Send a warship' … A ship of the British Merchant Marine was first to arrive on the scene. —Associated Press." Hargraves (2015) states the YEP copy was datelined Trieste "that very Thursday morning"; Skeptoid (2020): "The dateline in those 1940 Associated Press articles gave the city of the story's origin as … Trieste, Italy." (The BNA page itself is paywalled; not viewed by me.)
- *L'Illustrazione Italiana*, 8 Dec 1940, p. 846, "IL MISTERO DELL'«OURANG-MEDAN»" by SILVIO SCHERL-SCHERLI, with the same two photographs (archive.org `RAV0070589_1940_00049`; index item `ILL-ITA_1940`) [illustrazione_1940_49_djvu.txt, img/illustrazione_1940_49_n51.jpg].
- *China Mail* (Hong Kong) 27 Feb 1941 (archive.org `NPCM19410227`) [chinamail_19410227_djvu.txt]: "A RESCUE PARTY that answered an SOS and boarded the steamer Ourang Medan, off the Solomon Islands … The Ourang Medan had sent out an SOS and the message 'Send doctor—urgent' … 'Send a warship' was the next … twelve bodies three of them of deck officers".

## 3. The 1948 Dutch serial — what it says about Scherli, and how it maps onto 1940/41

Sources read: Leekster courant 24 Jan 1948 (crediting "een verslaggever van Elsevier's Weekblad") [full text in sources/reports/delpher_report.md, B1]; De locomotief (Semarang) 3 Feb 1948 (`https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010862872:mpeg21:a0050:ocr`, a0051), 28 Feb 1948 (ddd:010862918:mpeg21:a0033–a0036), 13 Mar 1948 (ddd:010862945:mpeg21:a0036–a0038, a0042) [delpher_ddd_*.xml; page-level ALTO/JP2 also fetched]. Elsevier's Weekblad itself (17 Jan, 14 Feb, 28 Feb 1948 per Paijmans notes 1–4) is not on Delpher.

Extracted statements about the author/source:
- Profession: **never stated**. 3 Feb: first-person narrator on the rescuing ship ("Wat hier vermeld wordt steunt op ons logboek"; boarding party "De kapitein, de eerste stuurman, de marconist, twee matrozen en ik"). 28 Feb sub-headline: "De Enige Overlevende, Silvio Scherli, Vertelt zijn Verhaal" — the paper's sub-editor took him for the sole survivor, which contradicts the text (the survivor dies). Editorial box, 28 Feb: "De auteur, Silvio Scherli, vertoeft thans te Triest. Hij verzekert, voor de authenticiteit van dit verhaal in te staan. Daar wij over generlei verdere informatie dan die, welke in deze vervolgartikelen vervat is, beschikken, moeten wij met de persoonlijke verzekering van de auteur volstaan. Red. Loc." ("The author, Silvio Scherli, is at present in Trieste. He assures us that he vouches for the authenticity of this story. As we have no information beyond what is contained in these follow-up articles, we must make do with the author's personal assurance.") 13 Mar: "De conclusie ligt voor de hand, dat het ganse verhaal een fantasie, een boeiende romance is. Hiertegenover staat de verklaring van de auteur, Silvio Scherli, te Triest, die in zijn verzekering omtrent de authenticiteit volhardt."
- How he obtained the survivor's story: through a letter from "een Franciscaner missionaris van het eiland Tcangi [Taongi], behorend tot de Marshall-eilanden … Die schrijft het volgende: «Vijf dagen heb ik in mijn eenzaam huis gastvrijheid verleend aan een schipbreukeling…»", received "enige maanden" after the sinking.
- Survivor: nameless; first mate ("Als eerste stuurman hield ik toezicht"), signed on at Shanghai by a captain "die zijn ware naam niet noemde … Misschien was de kapitein een Duitser"; "Ik was een van die duizenden zwervers … Zonder huis, zonder vrienden, zonder naam." Died on Taongi: "Zijn ware naam mag ik niet vertellen. Hij was een Duitser. Hij biechtte en ontving de Communie. Hij werd begraven bij de oude palm op het kerkhof achter het missie gebouw." Not Italy: the survivor died on the atoll.
- The only personal name: the captain's passport "afgegeven door de Chinese autoriteiten te Shanghai, met de naam Alfred Schutzwald uit Hamburg". Untraceable.
- Dates: "midden Juni 1947" (3 Feb / Leekster); cargo loaded in a Chinese river mouth "vlak na de oorlog"; disaster on "de vijftiende dag"; twelve days in the boat; then months before the missionary's letter.
- Radio text: "S.O.S. from ship ourang medan stop pse ships with SW get urgent DH medico stop" — the 1940 Italian "S.O.S. de Ourang-Medan pse SW DH medico urgent" (Italian "medico" kept), with the same gloss ("wij verzoeken alle schepen met kortegolfzenders … om directe medische hulp" = "preghiamo navi con installazioni onde corte ottenerci urgente consulto medico") and the same remark that an SOS preceding a medical request is anomalous; the 600-metre band; a 16-hour run to the position (1940: "entro 16 ore"; 1948: "binnen zestien uur"); no wounds, no blood; explosion in a hold; fire all night; sinking at dawn; "zijn geheim medenemend" = "portando con sè il segreto".

Comparison table:

| Element | Il Piccolo 16 Oct 1940 | Il Piccolo 5 Feb 1941 (sequel) | Elsevier's/De locomotief 1948 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | night of 13 Nov 1939 | "19 novembre 1939"; survivor says 11 and 13 October | mid-June 1947 |
| Place | ~200 mi SE of the Solomons, "mari della Micronesia" | same | ~400 nm SE of the Marshall Islands; position "20° westerbreedte 179° oosterlengte" (nonsense term; 20°S 179°E is ~150 nm SE of Viti Levu, Fiji — where the 1941 survivor landed — and nowhere near the Marshalls) |
| Rescuers | unnamed merchant ship (narrator) + US torpedo boat "W 716" | merchant ship + US torpedo boat | narrator's unnamed ship; later lore adds *Silver Star* / *City of Baltimore* |
| Dead found | 12 bodies, 3 deck officers; ship should have ≥40 crew | "numerosi marinai ed ufficiali" | 22 dead incl. dog and second officer |
| Explosion | hatch no. 2 | welding in hold no. 4 | "Brand in luik vier", "Ruim IV" |
| Cargo/cause | unknown; ex-convict ship (England→Australia) | 2,500 crates: nitroglycerine "spirits", potassium cyanide, sulphuric acid; ex-convict ship | 15,000 cases/1,100 t: sulphuric acid, liquid nitroglycerine, other chemicals |
| Survivor | none | white man in boat, sheltered by Fijian tribe > 1 year, brought to Governor of Viti Levu Dec 1940; 3 Malay companions died | German first mate, boat reaches Taongi; 6 companions died; dies after 5 days with Franciscan missionary |
| Photos | 2 photos, "passed in exclusivity to the US Navy" | – | same 2 photos reprinted (De locomotief 3 Feb 1948) |

The Brazilian *Revista da Semana* (Rio), May 1950 (archive.org `RevistaDaSemana_RJ_1950_00021`, `1950-maio`) [revistadasemana_1950_21_djvu.txt] re-sells the 1948 version as "A NARRAÇÃO DE SILVIO SCHERLI", calls him "marinheiro triestino Silvio Scherli", and names the missionary: "O relato que segue é do padre Christ, missionário em Toangi, nas ilhas Marshall"; the captain "afirmava ser alemão … era, segundo minha opinião, um mestiço".

## 4. Checkable details and results

- **Taongi/Bokak Atoll**: "an uninhabited coral atoll in the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands" (Wikipedia "Bokak Atoll"); no fresh water, never a mission station (also Skeptoid #756). The survivor/missionary episode cannot have happened as told.
- **"W 716"**: Paijmans, FT Feb 2021, note 30: the US Coast Guard informed him "that no torpedo boat named W716 was operational in 1939, and that this particular type of coding was not even in use at the time".
- **Sir Harry Luke** (7 jours 1941 only): real Governor of Fiji 1938–42 (Wikipedia "Harry Luke") — a true name attached to an invented event; Il Piccolo 1941 only says "il Governatore di Viti Levu". No Fiji record of an Ourang Medan castaway is known (Trove/Papers Past: see sources/reports/trove-sg-nz_report.md; my Papers Past query returned nothing).
- **Photographs**: identical pictures serve for a Nov 1939 event (1940) and a June 1947 event (1948); in 1940 they were said to have gone "in esclusività alla Marina da guerra americana". Paijmans: "Trieste is a large port, so Scherli could easily have staged the photograph of the dead naval officer on board any ship."
- **Radio detail**: Funkarzt Elbe-Weser, CIRM Rome, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Radio, 600 m/41 m bands — accurate professional colour consistent with his documented trade (ufficiale marconista).
- **Internal contradictions**: 13 vs 19 Nov 1939 vs October dates vs June 1947; hatch 2 vs hold 4; 12 vs 22 dead; 15 vs 7 men in boats; Fiji vs Taongi; "Malaysia" vs Fiji in the same 1941 page; "west latitude".
- **"Alfred Schutzwald"**: no trace anywhere (web, archive.org full text).
- **Export Trade 1959**: unrelated trade report (see §1).
- **Ship registers**: not my task, but note Skeptoid/Hargraves/Wikipedia: no *Ourang Medan* in Lloyd's Register; *Silver Star* had been renamed *Santa Cecilia* in 1945.

## 5. Did the Italian press print the first-person account in 1947 before the Dutch?

No evidence of it; the evidence points the other way.
- archivio.ilpiccolo.it full-text (Solr) for the exact token "Ourang" across all titles (Il Piccolo morning/evening/Ore Diciotto 1881–1945, *Il Popolo di Trieste* 1940–43, *Giornale alleato* 1945–47, *Giornale di Trieste* 1947–54, *Il Piccolo* 1954–): 14 hits, of which only three are relevant — 16 Oct 1940 p. 3, 26 Oct 1940 p. 3, 5 Feb 1941 p. 3 [ilpiccolo_solr_Ourang.json]. Nothing in 1947–1948. (Phrase queries are rejected by the endpoint; "Medan" alone gives 1,377 hits, almost all real shipping news about Medan, Sumatra.)
- archive.org full-text search "Ourang Medan" (271 hits, all listed in [ia_fts_OurangMedan_300.json]): 1940s Italian items are only *L'Illustrazione Italiana* 1940; the earliest post-war items are the Dutch/Indonesian 1948 pieces (via Paijmans), *American Weekly* 3 and 10 Oct 1948 (`the-american-weekly-1948-10-03-dn-lg-ia`, `per_atlanta-constitution_1948-10-03_81_110`: "The ship was named Ourang Medan, meaning 'Man of Medan'…", citing Elsevier's Weekly), *Revista da Semana* 1950, *Amigoe di Curaçao* 7 Jan 1955, Otto Mielke, *Dampfer "Ourang Medan". Das Totenschiff in der Südsee* (Anker-Hefte 1, 1954; listed in *Deutsches Bücherverzeichnis* 1956–60), USCG *Proceedings* May 1952, Fate 1976 etc.
- Paijmans (FT 2021, note 8), who traced the story systematically, found the Italian reappearance only in Ennio Garieri, "Il Mistero dell'Ourang Medan", *L'Illustrazione del Popolo*, 31 Oct 1948, p. 5 — after Elsevier's (17 Jan 1948) and De locomotief (3 Feb 1948).
- The Dutch text carries Scherli's Italian formula inside it ("DH medico") and reproduces the 1940 structure paragraph by paragraph; the 1948 "survivor" instalments reproduce the 1941 sequel. This is a re-sold, updated translation of the Trieste articles, not an independent 1947 report. Whether he supplied Elsevier's with Italian, German or English copy is unknown (he wrote English in 1954).

## 6. Scherli as a serial teller of sea tales

- The "I drammi del mare" series in *Il Piccolo delle Ore Diciotto* (Oct 1940–Apr 1941; list compiled by the 2024 blog: Ourang-Medan 16 Oct; "Elenor Synt" 26 Oct; "Yohore/Johore" 9 Nov; "Geo. W. Macknight" 16 Nov; "Titanic" 23 Nov; "A.N.N.A." 30 Nov 1940; "Diable Chain" 1 Jan 1941 — a ship already name-dropped in the Ourang-Medan opening paragraph; Ourang-Medan sequel 5 Feb 1941; "Oubanghi-Chari" 24 Apr 1941). Readers doubted them already in Nov 1940 (the paper's reply of 27 Nov 1940 quoted above).
- 1950: the *Bruciatutto* storm story from Gijón, "ci manda … Silvio Scherli era a bordo della nave" (a real Italian steamer; real event or not, unverified).
- 1954: the lung-cancer "research material" offered to American Tobacco for $780 (Paijmans: "Was this an amateurish attempt at extortion?").
- 1958/1975: Nagasaki photograph and article.

## 7. Searches that returned nothing, or archives that could not be used

- **La Stampa** historical archive: HTTP 503 / connection reset on 5+ attempts [lastampa*.html] — not searched.
- **BNCR (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma) and Braidense emeroteche**: connection reset; **Internet Culturale**: captcha [ic_ourang.html].
- **ANNO (Austrian newspapers)**: Cloudflare Turnstile challenge [anno/*.txt]; the Oct 1940 Austrian reprints are cited from Paijmans only.
- **Google Books API**: daily quota exhausted (HTTP 429); books.google.com via curl: 403; only the one Export Trade snippet was obtained (via a page fetch). Google Books search for other books naming "Silvio Scherli": not possible.
- **HathiTrust full-text search**: 403.
- **Ancestry, Geneanet, MyHeritage**: 403; **FamilySearch**: requires login/JS — no genealogical record verified directly; the Ancestry-derived crew-list data are quoted from the 2024 blog and Skeptoid only.
- **Delpher**: no search beyond the six De locomotief URNs (see sources/reports/delpher_report.md); Elsevier's Weekblad is not on Delpher.
- **Papers Past**: empty result for "Ourang" [paperspast.html]; Trove not searched (see sources/reports/trove-sg-nz_report.md).
- **grenswetenschap.nl** (Dutch forum thread mentioned by Hargraves' commenters, about an Italian pulp booklet): 503/404 [grenswetenschap.html].
- **archivio.ilpiccolo.it**: the `get_articles.php` article-text endpoint is disabled ("Parametri mancanti") and the viewer redirects without a referer; texts were obtained from the Solr OCR field and from page PDFs/JPEGs. Server-side year filtering of the Solr endpoint is broken (Solr syntax error), so all-years queries were used. Quoted-phrase queries are rejected.
- **archive.org full-text**: "Silvio Scherl" 11 hits, "Scherl-Scherli" 10 hits, "Scherli" 1,956 hits (mostly other Scherlis; every 1939–1959 *Il Piccolo* hit was checked from its snippet), "Scherk Trieste" 6,209 (only the 1930 decree relevant) [ia_fts_*.json].
- **"Alfred Schutzwald"**, "padre Christ Marshall", "Franciscan mission Taongi": nothing.
- **Wikipedia talk pages** (en): nothing on Scherli beyond the article; nl.wikipedia has no "Ourang Medan" article; it.wikipedia repeats the Dutch version ("il sopravvissuto, un anonimo tedesco … raccontò quanto appreso all'autore, Silvio Scherli di Trieste").
- **"Estelle Hargraves"**: she is the author of the 2015 Skittish Library post (not an investigator of Scherli's biography); her findings are the two Nov 1940 British AP items and the Trieste dateline.
- **Il Piccolo 1947–48 for Scherli himself**: hits `Piccolo_1947-07-02`, `Piccolo_1948-08-31`, `Piccolo_1948-09-21` concern Natale Scherli (trap-shooter) and an Irene Scherli, not Silvio. So there is no direct 1947–48 Trieste record of Silvio's whereabouts; the 1943 marriage, 1950 letters, 1952 directory and 1954 letterhead bracket the period.

## 8. Assessment

1. Silvio Scherli existed: a Triestine merchant-navy radio officer (b. 1901, d. 1985) who wrote travel pieces with his own photographs from 1933, a series of "sea dramas" for the Trieste evening paper in 1940–41, and later freelance journalism. The evidence that he lived in Trieste in the 1940s is solid for 1940–41 (signed articles, editor's replies) and 1943 (marriage at San Giusto, civil register), and for the 1950s (city directory, letterhead, local reports); for 1947–48 specifically there is only De locomotief's "vertoeft thans te Triest".
2. The Ourang Medan story is his authored fiction of October 1940, presented as a first-person memoir of an (unnamed) rescue-ship officer, illustrated with two photographs whose "exclusive transfer to the US Navy" he claimed in print. He supplied a sequel with a sole survivor within four months (Feb 1941), and re-sold the pair — updated to June 1947, the Marshall Islands and Taongi — to Elsevier's Weekblad in January 1948, from which De locomotief, De West, Austrian papers, the American Weekly (Oct 1948), the Italian *Illustrazione del Popolo* (Oct 1948), the Brazilian *Revista da Semana* (1950), the USCG *Proceedings* (1952) and Otto Mielke (1954) descend. Every checkable specific is false or contradicted; the constant across all versions is the Italian-flavoured radio formula "SW … DH medico".
3. The 1940 British/AP version is not independent corroboration: it is the Trieste article as syndicated by AP (datelined Trieste per Hargraves and Skeptoid; five weeks after Il Piccolo's own note that the piece "will be published in the United States and in other countries"), with AP turning Scherli's unnamed rescue ship into "a ship of the British Merchant Marine".
4. Nothing links Scherli to any real ship in the Solomons in November 1939; his documented sea service (1935–38, 1950, 1954–55) is on Italian Atlantic liners, an Italian tramp steamer and an Esso tanker. No source names the ship he claimed to be serving on in 1939, and the 1941 sequel refers to him only as "un ufficiale giuliano".
5. Residual uncertainty: (a) the 1930 decree spells the surname "Scherk" (very probably the same man, given age and Trieste; not proven); (b) I could not see Elsevier's Weekblad, the Austrian 1940 reprints, the Yorkshire Evening Post dateline or the Ancestry crew lists myself — those are cited from Paijmans, Hargraves, Skeptoid and the 2024 blog.

## 9. Files consulted (main ones; working copies, not included in this folder except as noted above)

- Il Piccolo: `ilpiccolo_19401016_p3.pdf`, `ilpiccolo_19410205_p3.pdf`, `img/ilpiccolo_1940*.png`, `img/ilpiccolo_1941*.png`, column crops `img/p1940_*.png`, `img/p1941_*.png`; OCR `ilpiccolo_ocr_TO00208776_19401016_p3.txt`, `…19401026_p3.txt`, `…19410205_p3.txt`; transcriptions `transcription_ilpiccolo_1940-10-16.txt`, `transcription_ilpiccolo_1941-02-05.txt`; Solr results `ilpiccolo_solr_*.json`; helper `code/scherli_ilpiccolo_solr.py`.
- archive.org texts: `ia_piccolo/Piccolo_*_djvu.txt`, `ia_more/` (Gazzetta Ufficiale 1929/1930 with page image and crop, Guida di Trieste 1934/1952, Illustrazione Italiana 1933, Piccolo 1943-10-01, 2000-05-11), `illustrazione_1940_49_djvu.txt`, `chinamail_19410227_djvu.txt`, `revistadasemana_1950_21_djvu.txt`, `iln_19580705_djvu.txt`, `paijmans_djvu.txt`, `ia_fts_*.json`.
- Delpher: `delpher_ddd_*.xml` (article OCR), `delpher_010862872_p003_alto.xml` + `.jp2`, `delpher_p002_alto.bin/.image.bin` (28 Feb 1948 page), crops `img/locomotief_*.png`.
- Gallica: `gallica_7jours_1940.xml`, `gallica_7jours_1941.xml`, `gallica_cs_*.xml`.
- UCSF: `ucsf_lrwp0215.pdf/.ocr`, `ucsf_krwp0215.pdf`, `img/ucsf_*.png`.
- Modern accounts: `skittish.txt`, `skeptoid_756.txt`, `tragedies_blog_scherli.txt`, `wiki_*`, `yacht_en.txt`, `bainton_cargo_of_death.txt`.