Dorset’s record breaking wet winter may have slowed the search for the world’s first tank, believed to have been buried at Bovington in 1940, but with better drone technology and a potential burial site identified, hopes of success are higher than ever.
Operation Mother has officially been halted for spring and summer 2026 due to the need to protect nesting birds and reptiles in the area, a site of special scientific interest, but plans are already being made to continue the hunt later in the year.
Staff Sergeant Anthony Cherrett, here on the Bovington driver training ground, is more confident than ever that Mother can be found
Exciting new information
As a result of continual rain throughout January and February 2026, when Dorset recorded its second highest level of rainfall since records began, an area the size of 45 football fields has not yet been scanned for the legendary tank.
But fundraising to finance a second search in September 2026 is underway – and with exciting new information coming in, The Tank Museum volunteer Staff Sergeant Anthony Cherrett is very optimistic that the Holy Grail of militaria may still be found buried in Dorset.
But first the team has to raise around £21,000 to fund the search, and while it has applied for charitable status which would open untapped seams of money, it could take up to half a year to make that a reality.
The terrain – and the winter weather – on the former tank driver training ground at Bovington near Wool, held up the search for Mother
“Technology was not up to standard”
Anthony Cherrett said:
“Charity status would mean that a lot of companies who are interested in helping us can release money to the project a lot more easily, but it takes so long to get there – I have just had a letter this morning saying our application will take up to another 23 weeks to go through.
“In the meantime, we are lacking the funds to do any more research yet, as we spent pretty much all of it on the initial search, so we will have to go back to crowdfunding again.
“In the area we did manage to search before the unusually wet winter brought a halt to the search, we didn’t find a significant metal signature, but we are now hearing that the technology we used is no longer the best standard required for the terrain there.
“The ground isn’t flat on the driver training area we were investigating, not even slightly, and the drone we used was having massive issues to stay at the correct height to give us the best results.”
In tests in 1915, Mother was said to go through ‘wire entanglements like a rhinoceros through a field of corn’
Exciting new information
Anthony added:
“There is now a newer drone technology where it doesn’t matter what height it’s at, it could actually stay at a very high level and just scan downwards, which is what we are looking at for autumn.
“The only real evidence we had was the letter from Colonel Dillon saying that Mother was buried in the Bovington driver training area, so we will search that entire area with the new technology, I think that’s the easiest way.
“But we have since had people come forward with some new information, including collaboration from someone who was here at the time and potentially knows exactly where to look.
“I have done a ground recce where they told us to look and there are four large indentations in the ground, so it all marries up – we might not even need to scan the whole driver training area.
“I don’t want to sound too confident, as we do get a lot of false information coming in, but I am quietly confident that Mother was buried now, more than ever.”
The final photographs of Mother, from 1928, show that she had been stripped of her weapons, engine and tracks
Next big update at TankFest
Anthony Cherrett hopes to be able to reveal the next big updates during a stage presentation at TankFest at The Tank Museum in Bovington, from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th June 2026, where they will also have a stand to show off the new technology which can hopefully be used to locate Mother.
The tank at the centre of the search, officially named HMLS (His Majesty’s Land Ship) Centipede but better known as Mother or Big Willie, was developed in 1915 as Britain sought to break the deadlock of trench warfare during World War One.
After successful trials witnessed by figures including Prime Minister David Lloyd George and King George V, the design led directly to the deployment of tanks on the Western Front.
After World War One, Mother was transferred to Bovington Camp, where she was displayed alongside other early tanks at what would eventually become The Tank Museum, but disappeared in the early 1940s.
Major Bill Brannon, sitting, second from right, is the man said to have buried Mother to save her from the scrappers
Last confirmed images of Mother
Historical records show that parts from both Mother and another early prototype, Little Willie, were taken by train to Wool in 1919, set to be transported from there to Bovington, but what happened to those components remains unclear.
Photographs from 1928, the last confirmed images of Mother, show her in a heavily stripped condition, missing key components including her engine, tracks and weaponry.
It was long believed that Mother was melted down and recycled on The Tank Museum site in 1940, during the scrap metal drives of World War Two.
One of the enduring questions is why Mother was not saved, while Little Willie survived and is now part of The Tank Museum collection, despite being in a similar condition in 1928.
Some accounts suggest Little Willie may have been repurposed as a defensive structure, such as a makeshift bunker, during wartime, though evidence for this remains unconfirmed.
The extent of the former driver training area, Bovington – the area in red was surveyed in 2025, but 32 hectares still remain to be investigated
Potential to spot and map burial sites
Anthony Cherrett is convinced by a Bovington legend, that Mother was not destroyed at all, but secretly buried somewhere on the training area to save her from the scrappers.
After months of research, his team unearthed a letter in the Tank Museum’s archives written by Lieutenant Colonel Dillon about the wartime activities of a friend who had been based at Bovington.
The letter read:
“Major Bill Brannon found the scrap metal staff beginning to demolish some of the old tanks. It was noon, and they knocked off for lunch.
“Meanwhile, Bill organised a towing tank and pulled out four of the oldest tanks and buried them in the driving area. These four included Mother and Musical Box, all happily still with us.”
As far fetched as it sounds to bury a tank during a lunchbreak, the huge driver training area would have been full of enormous predug holes, to allow trainees to practise driving tanks in rough terrain.
And with new drone technology which has the potential to spot and map something as small as a badger sett, let alone a tank burial site, the team remains confident that the final resting place of Mother may yet be discovered.
A multispectral image of the area mapped by drones didn’t locate Mother – but improved technology could give better results
Further information
- There’s more on the hunt for Mother on the Tank Museum‘s website
- Crowdfunding for the hunt continues on GoFundMe
