Of more immediate relevance to the Water Police were the pirates, who had come swarming back into action with the same enthusiasm as the traders and prostitutes. Their initial depredations, which had come close to strangling Hong Kong just after the re-occupation, were stemmed by a highly unorthodox unit known as `Gickforce', after its equally unorthodox leader Commander `Percy' D. Gick, RN. He used a variation of the old `Q-ship' tactic in which, between late 1945 and early 1946, he and his team manned inward-bound cargo junks and delivered short, sharp (and usually terminal) shocks to pirates attempting to attack them.