Wish I'd Been There: Tito Entertains the British Navy

“Tito”—Josip Broz, the Croat-Slovene peasant child who grew up to be leader of Yugoslavia—spent most of World War II as the leader of anti-Nazi partisans in the wilds of the Balkan Peninsula. In the early months of his campaign, the allied leadership had no idea who he was, or indeed whether he was perhaps just a fiction. Time and circumstance at last put him into contact with more conventional forces and in the summer of 1943, Tito had himself smuggled out of Yugoslavia for an encounter with British. His biographer recounts:

Disliking the status of refugee, Tito remained in Italy no longer than was necessary. After spending a few days in a villa on the outskirts of Bari which had been placed at his disposal by the British authorities, he crossed by night to Vis in H.M.S. Blackmore, a Hunt Class destroyer. On his way over he was entertained at dinner in the wardroom in the best naval style. The atmosphere was hilarious, there was plenty to drink, and Tito’s natural shyness soon wore off. By the end of the evening he was reciting “The Owl and the Pussy Cat" in fluent English to an admiring audience of young naval officers.

--Fitzroy Maclean, The Heretic 221-2 (1957).

Tito was, among other things, a natural learner, who seemed to pick up the language of any group he was among after a matter of days.