WHEN it came to doing its 'bit' in the second world war Hatherleigh certainly helped to make waves on the nautical front.

Vital to the war effort when the country was in danger of being overrun the good citizens of Hatherleigh answered an appeal by the Government to raise enough money to buy a warship for the defence of the realm.

Similar to many towns and cities throughout the British Isles it responded to 'Warship Week' from March 7 to 14, 1941, to raise £100,000 for a Royal Navy fighting ship.

Monies were raised by buying National Savings Certificates, Defence Bonds or making investments in the Post Office or Trustee Savings Bank, resulting in HMS Hatherleigh.

From the archives of local historians Mike and Wendy Wreford of Okehampton, they found a leaflet on 'Warship Week'.

The Hunt three class destroyer was originally built for the British Royal Navy as HMS Hatherleigh but before her completion, she was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy and commissioned on 27 July, 1942 as the Greek warship Constantine Kanaris.

Crewed by a complement of 170 men, she had a displacement of 1,490 tons and a standard weight of 1,050 tons. She was 279.85 feet in length, with a beam of 37.40ft and draft of 7.87ft and had a maximum speed of 26 knots — thanks to her twin screw engines.

Her armament consisted four four-inch (102mm) guns, four 40mm anti-aircraft pompom guns, three 20 mm A/A, two 533mm T/T guns and depth charges.

In order to relieve heavy losses of ships sustained by the Royal Hellenic Navy during the German invasion of 1941, Kanaris served throughout the war and during the Greek Civil War.

She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1959 and broken up for scrap in 1960.