PROCEEDINGS OF THE MERCHANT MARINE COUNCIL, United States Coast Guard, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 1952 (CG 129), page 107.
Source: official USCG PDF, https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/Proceedings%20Magazine/Archive/1952/Vol9_No5_May1952.pdf (retrieved via the Wayback Machine capture of 9 Dec 2025; file Vol9_No5_May1952.pdf in this folder; text extracted with pypdf, OCR errors corrected against the page image where obvious).
The item is an unsigned editorial feature "WE SAIL TOGETHER" (listed on the contents page as "We Sail Together ... 107"), running pp. 107-109. It opens with a paragraph on the fascination of the sea, then strings together five "mystery ship" anecdotes (the Spanish ship "Fell Antonia" abandoned off Ceylon; a nameless Dutch derelict found by the "Phoebus" in 1907, "recorded in the Netherland Board of Trade files"; a Tasmanian-built schooner-ketch found on the Lacepede Archipelago, "found in the shipping files in North-west Australia"; the American schooner "Star"; and the Ourang Medan), and then turns to the Titanic and the history of the Safety of Life at Sea conventions and load-line legislation. NO SOURCE IS CREDITED for the Ourang Medan paragraph, and there is no byline.

The Ourang Medan paragraph (p. 107, column 3) reads:

"Perhaps one of the most perturbing sea dramas occurred in February 1948. Radio silence was broken with an urgent S. O. S. from the S. S. Ourang Medan, a Dutch vessel, then proceeding through the Straits of Malacca. The strange distress call, transmitted in Morse Code, eerily read, "S. O. S. from Ourang Medan * * * we float. All officers, including the Captain, dead in chartroom and on the bridge. Probably whole of crew dead * * *." A few confused dots and dashes later two words came through clearly. They were "I die." Then, nothing more. Later the Ourang Medan was found adrift approximately 50 miles from her indicated position. When the vessel which had stumbled across her sent a boat over to investigate, the sailors swarming aboard the Ourang Medan found a sight seldom seen. There wasn't a living person or creature on board. There were dead men everywhere. Bodies were strewn about the decks, in the passageways, in the charthouse, on the bridge. Sprawled on their backs, the frozen faces upturned to the sun with mouths gaping open and eyes staring, the dead bodies resembled horrible caricatures. Even the ship's dog was found dead. Yet, the bodies seemed to bear no sign of injury or wounds. Then, when a fire was discovered in No. 4 hold, she had to be abandoned. A few minutes later an explosion followed and the Ourang Medan sank. To this day no explanation has been offered as to what might have happened to the unfortunate ship's company."

The following paragraph: "Too often these and similar instances have been dismissed with a shrug. Admittedly, such cases emphasize the unusual. Except that they seem to perturb mankind they perhaps have little value other than to add color to the annals of the sea, because the explanation rests upon the unknown. Nevertheless, the fact that they do make people think is important for unfortunately safeguards ordinarily seem to follow the anguished cries of "Why? and How?," in the wake of some marine tragedy. ..." (then the Titanic).

[Notes: (1) The rescuing vessel is NOT named (no "Silver Star", no "City of Baltimore"). (2) "February 1948" and "Straits of Malacca" appear here for the first time as the date and place of the disaster in any known printing; the Straits of Malacca had previously appeared only as the ship's point of departure in the American Weekly (10 Oct 1948), which dated the loss to June 1947 in the South Pacific and said the story was printed in Elsevier's Weekly "last January" and in the London press "a month later" (i.e. February 1948) — the likeliest origin of the Coast Guard's "February 1948". (3) Several details are clearly derived from the American Weekly text: "we float" (AW: "We are floating"), "found adrift approximately 50 miles from her indicated position" (AW: "50 miles from the position given"), "No. 4 hold" (AW: "No. 4 Hatch"), "Even the ship's dog was found dead" (AW: "A dead dog also"), "I die" (AW: "I am dying"), "no sign of injury or wounds" (AW: "No signs of blood or violence"). The "frozen faces upturned to the sun ... horrible caricatures" wording is the Coast Guard writer's own embellishment and became the most-quoted line of the legend (Hulse/Fate 1953, Jessup 1955, Marck 1959, Gaddis 1965 all quote it as from the Proceedings). (4) Other issues checked for follow-ups (letters/corrections): Mar, Apr, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 1952 and Jan, Feb, Mar 1953 — nothing on the Ourang Medan. Not checked (not in the Wayback Machine and the USCG site blocks automated access): Jun 1952 and Apr-Jun 1953.]