A SHIP'S bell belonging to one of 50 destroyers donated to Britain from America during World War Two as part of The Gift Horses project has been rediscovered.

The ships were to help with the war effort and were given to town names common to both the UK and the USA in 1940.

The bell from HMS Broadway was salvaged when the ship was decommissioned in the late 1940s and was put into safe keeping at the Lygon Arms, in the village.

Donald Russell, manager of the Lygon Arms at the time, was also a parish councillor and it is believed he offered to keep the bell safe in the interests of the people of the parish.

It has remained in view to guests on the first floor ever since, though many members of the public were unaware of its existence.

The bell was unearthed as preparations were made to attend a plaque unveiling ceremony in Burnham-on-Sea - also recipient of a destroyer - by Broadway residents Michael and Patricia Blanchard, who had been researching the history of HMS Broadway. They were joined by Broadway parish councillor, Connie Wilson.

Plaques commemorating the history of The Gift Horses have been placed on the esplanade sea wall.

HMS Broadway's most notable involvement with the Second World War was in 1941 when the group she was deployed with in anti-German submarine operations in the Atlantic captured an Enigma coding machine and documents.

She had carried out depth charge attacks forcing a submarine carrying the device to surface. The submarine was captured by HMS Broadway and sister ship HMS Bulldog during the operation instead of being sunk as the enemy expected and the equipment - unknown at the time of its significance - secretly taken. William Stewart Pollock, a radio operator on loan to Bulldog had gathered up the Enigma machine and codebooks because he thought they looked out of place in the radio room.

The capture allowed the code breakers at Bletchley Park to crack the German Navy’s codes and gave them unparalleled insight into the more secure operations that the Kreigsmarine - the German Nazi navy - used. In 1942 the German codes changed as the Kreigsmarine switched to an even more complex variant of Enigma.

By 1945, however, because of the work of the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park and the actions of HMS Broadway and her group in securing the machine and information, all German encrypted traffic was being decrypted within a day or two.

Mr Blanchard, who had been invited to attend the ceremony because of his research into the history of HMS Broadway, said everyone enjoyed the experience.

"There were around 40 people present and it was a wonderful and very interesting day. Prime Minister David Cameron had sent a letter to project chairman Neville Jones, congratulating the Fifty Destroyers Project committee for organising the ceremony and highlighting the help America gave the country," said Mr Blanchard.

The unveiling was attended by Captain Michael Garrick of the US Navy.