There are those who believe that the period the unit now entered, from 1961 to the early 1970s, was in many ways its most interesting. Its international character became more marked, as while the proportion of members who were neither British nor Chinese remained much the same the number of `pressed' British declined and was offset by increased numbers of Chinese. A famous photograph from the time (1963) pictures a single `Auxie' crew made up of no less than ten different nationalities, and although that particular crew was specially assembled it was not at all unusual to have half a dozen different nationalities sailing together. Some members during these years had previous experience of multi-national organisations; one such being Charles Tintant, a hefty former French Foreign Legionnaire who had lost an eye to a fragment of shrapnel in North Africa during the Second World War. Others came from countries whose governments were somewhat stricter on the subject of their nationals serving foreign flags. These, like the American Dolf Goldsmith, usually worked on the principle that "you can get forgiveness easier than you can get permission!", and joined without bothering their respective consulates for an official ruling. It was also during the 1960s that the first women were recruited into the Marine Auxiliaries - long before the regular Mariners even contemplated such a move. There were never very many of them however, and their role was limited to land-based communications; an emergency role which the auxiliary Mariners had developed since they first took it on as the Marine Specials during the 1956 riots. In August 1968 Frank Goldberg, the then superintendent in command, announced through the South China Morning Post that five more women were needed in the Auxiliary Marine Communications Section. The unit, he said, already had seven girls; and any joining them would need to be fluent in English because "we have seventeen different nationalities in the Auxiliary Marine Police, and English is the common language." His call would appear to have been only partially successful, as the February 1969 personnel list records a strength of nine Auxiliary Marine policewomen: one Chinese, three Portuguese and five British.