Sailor made casting. Crew members would often scrape together brass fittings or brass ware and have a matelot in engineering cast a badge, from the onboard official pattern, to gift to a loved one. HMS Zest was a Z Class destroyer, serving during WW2.

In WW2 HMS Zest saw action in Operation Victual passage of convoys JW 59 and RA 59A between the UK and Northern Russia and vice versa, and Operation Goodwood, to provide cover for these convoys and to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in the Kaafjord. Post War she carried out patrols in Singapore and the Malacca Straits to prevent infiltration of Indonesian led forces and smuggling of weapons during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.