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SS Karsik (1938)

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Yard number
  
597

Fate
  
Wrecked 17 June 1967

Launched
  
1938

Beam
  
14 m

Identification
  
IMO 541291

Type
  
Cargo ship

Length
  
93 m

SS Karsik (1938) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommons44

Name
  
SS Soneck SS Karsik SS Pearl of Victory

Owner
  
DDG Hansa (1938-1940), Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (1940-1963)

Builder
  
Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau

SS Karsik was a freighter built for Deutsche Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft "Hansa" by Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG, Werk Seebeck, Wesermünde as Soneck, in 1938, of 2,191 GRT.

Contents

World War II impoundment and service

The ship was impounded 10 May 1940 by crew of HNLMS Java for the Netherlands government and operated by Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) in the Dutch East Indies as a train ferry. Karsik was one of twenty-one 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. The ship, among others, was chartered by the Chief Quartermaster, U.S. Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA) on 26 March 1942 with long term details to be negotiated at higher levels to become part of the U.S. Army's local fleet crewed by its KPM officers and men with the number X-20.

Karsik, escorted by HMAS Lithgow on the night of 11—12 December 1942, 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. Mayo notes the fact a large ship had arrived and thus the supply line had opened as having perhaps even greater significance than the arrival of the tanks. Karsik then returned on the 14th with a second load of tanks for the forces at Buna. Karsik's first trip with tanks to Oro Bay was named "Operation Karsik" and the second as "Operation Tramsik" and immediately preceded the regular convoys of Operation Lilliput.

Post war

She was sold in 1963 to the Leecho Steam Ship Co. of Panama and renamed Pearl of Victory; under which name she struck a reef in the Red Sea and was wrecked on 17 June 1967.

References

SS Karsik (1938) Wikipedia