A SCUBA diver from the North-East is preparing for a daring underwater mission to recover two historic bouncing bombs like the ones featured in the World War II film The Dam Busters.

Simon Smith, from Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, in County Durham, will be part of a team of divers aiming to raise the Highball bombs from the bottom of a Scottish loch.

Eleven British Sub-Aqua Club divers from all over the country are preparing to recover two of the bombs from the Loch Striven next month.

The project is backed by Mary Stopes-Roe, the daughter of late British engineer, Sir Barnes Wallis, who invented the bombs.

Mr Smith, 49, said: “It will be a great achievement to raise the highballs to the surface. It’s going to be an interesting dive and a good week of diving with people who I’ve dived with previously so it will be a lot of fun.”

There are currently no Highballs on display to the public and the aim is to place two of the giant spherical bombs in British museums, in time for the 75th anniversary of the Dambuster raid, in 2018.

They will be on show at the Brooklands Museum in Surrey and the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, formerly known as the Mosquito Museum, in Hertfordshire.

The Highballs were the naval or anti-ship version of the cylindrical shaped Upkeep bouncing bombs used by the Royal Air Force in the Dambusters raid in May 1943, designed by Sir Barnes to bounce over water.

Archive footage of the Highballs being tested at Loch Striven features in the 1955 film The Dam Busters, as footage of the bomb used by the RAF in the Ruhr Valley, Germany, remained top secret.

More than 200 of the bombs, codenamed Highball by the military, were tested at Loch Striven. They were intended to be used on enemy ships, but never became operational and they lie scattered on the floor of the loch.

Mr Smith said: “This type of project is right up my street. It should be a reasonably straightforward dive as it’s sheltered water in the upper loch.

“It will range from shallower 30-35m dives to some deeper 50-60m dives requiring significant decompression and mixed gasses.

“It makes it interesting and more of a challenge.

“We’ll have a real sense of achievement if we complete the task. I can’t wait to get started.”

The project has received the blessing of Sir Barnes Wallis’ daughter Mary Stopes-Roe, who is approaching her 90th birthday this autumn and lives in Moseley, Birmingham.

She said: “I think it’s absolutely splendid. I’m very happy to lend my support to this project and wish the team the best of luck with the dive.

“It’s a fantastic project and it would be a fitting tribute to my father to have the Highballs in a museum.

“My father loved the water, and although he didn’t scuba dive, I remember once he did bring back a snorkel from a trip to Sicily.

“It was the first one we had ever seen.

“I think if he were still alive he would be standing on the side telling them all what to do.”