The nameplate and badge from wartime destroyer HMS Wakeful are to be handed over to the Royal Navy’s historical collection following a maritime safety operation off the coast of Belgium.

The icons from the destroyer, lost off Dunkirk during the evacuation of 1940, were recovered by divers working on the wreck to safeguard shipping in the area.

HMS Wakeful had already rescued more than 600 exhausted troops from mainland Europe, and delivered them safely to Britain, when she went back to pick up a second group.

Packed with tired soldiers, she was returning to safety when she was torpedoed in the small hours of May 29. The destroyer broke in two and sank in around 15 seconds, taking down with her some 100 sailors and more than 600 soldiers. It is believed that just 25 of her ship’s company, and a single soldier, were rescued.

In recent years port officials in Zeebrugge and Antwerp have been concerned that the wreck posed a danger to shipping in the area. Wakeful lies in little more than 50 feet of water in an area of heavy maritime traffic, and it was originally suggested that the whole wreck might need to be moved.

But salvage experts decided late last year that Wakeful – an official war grave – need not be moved, but about 10ft of superstructure could be removed instead to allow ships to pass, while maintaining the war grave’s integrity.

Divers recovered the crest and name plaque during that operation, when the funnel and other navigational equipment were taken from the ship and attached to the side of her hull.

No human remains were disturbed during the operation.

The plate and badge were due to be presented to Britain’s Ambassador to Belgium, Richard Kinchen, at a ceremony in Ypres, before being passed on to the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth’s historic dockyard