Chinese wartime leader Chiang Kai-shek (left) smugly tries to hide an erection at a Valentine’s Day summit with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in 1943. 

The incident, recorded in American military intelligent reports as “Operation Woodpecker”, took place when a young aide became confused and accidentally switched a dossier outline Japanese troop movement in Burma with one containing Churchill’s private correspondence, including a Valentine he had written to his wife that morning.  

On opening the sealed file, Chiang read: “I think you are a dirty bitch, damn your squinty wretched eyes, and though I find you vile, insubordinate, and generally unhygienic, I demand that we spend the afternoon flogging each other with smelly rugby socks. Dirty bitch. Ye ever-adoring Winnie.” 

Churchill realized something was afoot later that afternoon when Chiang put his tongue in the British PM’s ear, and the muddle was soon cleared up, with Chiang insisting that there were no hard feelings. This photograph, however, suggests otherwise.