DEFENCE chiefs have moved to prevent a battle over the prototype of a famous Second World War bomb.

Sir Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb was used by the RAF to attack key enemy targets and was immortalised in the classic film The Dam Busters.

The bomb has been on display at the Yorkshire Air Museum, near York, for several years.

The MoD stepped in after an apparent disagreement over the ownership of the artefact between the Elvington-based museum and the Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust.

A spokesman for the trust said it recently received a letter from the MoD authorising it to remove the bouncing bomb from the region. It will be taken to the Newark Air Museum, in Lincolnshire.

The bouncing bomb was arguably the best-known invention of Wallis, who also pioneered the earthquake bomb.

Wallis, who had earlier worked on airship and aircraft design, was played by Michael Redgrave in the 1954 film.

The Dam Busters was based on Operation Chastise, in which the RAF’s 617 Squadron attacked dams in the Ruhr valley, in Germany, in 1943.

The bouncing bomb, in actual fact a rotating mine, was engineered to skip over water, avoiding enemy defences.

When it came into contact with the dam, it would sink before exploding, making it more destructive. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the raids.

A spokesman for the Yorkshire Air Museum played down the loss of the bouncing bomb to its collection.

He said: “This is a prototype, and not the actual bomb used in the dam buster raids.

“It has been an interesting exhibit, but [losing] it is not the end of the world.”

The spokesman said a disagreement between the museum and the trust had flared up over the procedure for the recording of artefacts.

He said: “The Yorkshire Air Museum is a nationally-accredited museum and follows guidelines for the storage of artefacts, so that they become part of the national collection.

“It is an important process.

“We have been discussing this with the Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust for a number of years, but it would not comply with the requests.”

The Harrogate-based Barnes Wallis Trust, formed in 1986 to commemorate the engineer’s life and work, is looking for a new home after its 15- year stay at the Yorkshire Air Museum came to an end recently.

For more information, visit barneswallistrust.org