"I worked in America for most of my life, but I've come home to Komiza to die," beamed 85-year-old Victor Kuljis, a sprightly old fellow in shorts and baseball cap. Leaning on his bicycle, he was gazing out to sea from the quayside of this lovely, ancient fishing port on the Croatian island of Vis, writes Deirdre McQuillan.
A former partisan in Tito's army, he had been exchanging emotional wartime memories beneath the harbour's landmark Venetian fortress with another lively octogenarian, Ray Godwin, a former sergeant in the British Royal Artillery. Ray was stationed on Vis in the l940s with the Yugoslav partisans helping to defend the island from the Germans who occupied the Adriatic coast and islands after they were abandoned by the Italians.
Godwin was one of a group of British second World War veterans who return to Vis every year to commemorate those killed in the war. By curious coincidence, I was in Komiza with a friend whose father, the late Dr Peter Delap from Valentia, a Trinity medical graduate and former British army marine commando, had also been stationed on the island around the same time. I had been reading with great interest the engaging memoir of this modest and courageous Irish doctor, who was later awarded an MC for bravery in action.
This September's ceremony at Komiza, attended by the British ambassador, Sir John Ramsden and members of the Croatian military and naval top brass, was a more elaborate affair than usual, to mark the 60th anniversary of the ending of the war. There were speeches, prayers, wreaths and even a member of the Argyll and Sutherland regiment in full Black Watch tartan regalia playing the bagpipes.
We joined other spectators on the pier and I fell into conversation with Celia Irving, a former BBC reporter and author of a book on the Adriatic islands who has lived in neighbouring Korkula for 40 years.
Because of its seaward location, Vis has always been of enormous strategic importance, a guardian island; whoever controlled it controlled the entrance to the Adriatic. It has a long military history. Greek and Roman remains abound and ancient Phoenician fortifications have recently come to light. It was Tito's military stronghold and a closed place for 45 years, opening up to the outside world only in l990. Today, deserted barracks and bunkers around the countryside are broken testimonies to its embattled past.
Chickens roost in abandoned cockpits. Former airfields have reverted to the vineyards celebrated in Roman times. It is an island of breathtaking beauty, crystalline waters and precipitous roads, fragrant with pine and lavender.
In his memoir, however, Dr Delap describes it as a "desolate mountainous islet, swarming with partisans. . . Tito, visiting the island, slept in a heavily guarded cave on Mount Hum, descending only reluctantly to inspect the Commandos. We were forbidden to intervene in their ferocious affairs. . ." The caves where Tito drew up the foundations of the new state of Yugoslavia can now be visited; the highest of them was used as a dining and meeting room with a small space for Tito's dog Tigger. From the windswept top of the mountain, where wild herbs and flowers flourish, there are heart-stopping views across to Italy, Dubrovnik and the islands of Korkula and Miljet.
Dr Delap recalls US airforce armadas "on daylight bombing raids passing directly overhead filling the sky in a perfect phalanx on the outward journey. Returning, a battered straggle of planes, individuals desperate for survival. Those unable to reach Italy either crash-landed on our tiny airstrip or baled out overhead, many falling into the sea." The wrecks of these foundered aircraft, including an intact US B17 Flying Fortress, lie in the island's watery depths. With all sorts of sunken vessels, as well as natural treasures such as seagrass meadows and rare seals and turtles, Vis is now a paradise for divers.
Paradise or not, Vis has more formidable 21st-century battles on its hands nowadays. With Croatia's tourism boom, more than eight million holidaymakers descended on the Dalmatian coast and islands this summer, and Vis has not escaped the invasion. Each year visitor numbers increase by 20 per cent, mostly from Slovenia and Italy, followed by Germany and the UK. Many locals are worried about the future of what the head of the World Wildlife Federation has described as a jewel that must be preserved.
"I hate that word tourism," says Zoran Franicevic, who runs the local radio station. "Vis is a way of life on the edge. For us it is more important to have 10 new faces in February than a thousand in July and August. We are against megalomaniac developments and marinas." So far, none has been built.
Many people who left Vis in the l960s and l970s are now returning home like Victor Kuljis, either to retire or to find summer jobs in the tourist industry. The Rokis, for example, returned from Australia to their family vineyards near the former military airstrip and now produce the best wine on the island and run an excellent restaurant shaded by mulberry trees. In Dr Delap's days, Vis "could be reached only by small craft under cover of darkness, the surrounding islands being in German hands". Today all you have to do is take the Jadrolinja ferry from Split for the two-and-a-half-hour sea crossing - if you're lucky, as we were, accompanied by dolphins.