The Isle of Purbeck Sub Aqua Club (IPSAC) is giving people a chance to dive on its ongoing Valentine 75 project, which is mapping the history of seven top secret Second World War tanks.

Six weeks before the D-Day landings, wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, King George VI and General Dwight D Eisenhower – Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces – met at Fort Henry, near Studland, to watch a rehearsal of the assault.

As Exercise Smash unfolded, a number of ‘Valentines’ tanks – which had been equipped with propellers and canvas skirts to make them amphibious – were deployed.

However, rough seas claimed seven of them with the loss of six men.

The Valentine 75 Project was launched to map the history of these tanks, their crews and the men who lost their lives on April 4, 1944.On Thursday May 31, from 8-10pm, IPSAC will hold a ‘try dive’ evening for people interested in learning to dive.

It takes place at Purbeck Sports Centre, Wareham, and consists of a short presentation about diving followed by a chance to try out the diving equipment in the centre’s swimming pool.

Club training officer Nick Reed said: “We will be running a novice training course in the weeks following the ‘try dive’.

“What is particularly exciting about the course this year is that the divers will be able to take part in our Valentine 75 project.

“The project has been recording and surveying the seven Valentine tanks wrecks in Poole Bay.

“The tanks were, at the time, a top secret design and were taking part in Exercise Smash, a major training exercise in preparation for D-Day.”

As part of the project the club recently located the last remaining survivor of the exercise and interviewed him.

Mr Price, aged 93, who now lives in the West Midlands, was a crewman on one of the seven Valentines that sank.

He was rescued, given a tot of rum and told to tell no-one of his experience.

Six weeks later he was in one of the tanks that landed just ahead of the main invasion force on Gold Beach.

Mr Reed said: “The location and depth of the tanks make them ideal for newly qualified divers to explore and they will be one of the first dives they will make from a boat.

“It will be diving with a purpose.”

Contact IPSAC chairman Chris Dunkerly on chris@ipsacdivers.co.uk, or email valentine75@ipsacdivers.co.uk, to book a place on the course.