The turbine drove the same shaft as the piston engine by double-reduction gearing and a Föttinger fluid coupling.

[1][6] Karsik was one of 21 KPM vessels that took refuge in Australian ports after the fall of Java that Dutch officials requested be put into service for the war effort.

[7] The ship, among others, was chartered by the Chief Quartermaster, US Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA) on 26 March 1942 with long term details to be negotiated at higher levels to become part of the US Army's local fleet crewed by its KPM officers and men with the number X-20.

[8] [note 1] On the night of 11–12 December 1942 Karsik, escorted by HMAS Lithgow, was the first large vessel to arrive at Oro Bay delivering four Stuart light tanks that were loaded into recently arrived barges and then towed up the coast and landed within miles of the battlefront at Buna.

[12] In 1963 the Leecho Steam Ship Company (Yong and Lee Timber of Hong Kong)[3] bought Karsik, renamed her Pearl of Victoria and registered her in Panama.