Hind K5426 near Hoyland Swaine.

185 Squadron was reformed at Abingdon on 1st June 1938 from the nucleus of B-Flight of 40 Squadron and two days later it received six Hawker Hinds from 40 Squadron. The squadron records do not mention a flying accident during July 1938 and purely state that they begun to exchange the Hinds for Fairey Battles with the first two being collected from Fairey Aviation, Stockport on 21st July 1938. What appears to have happened is that some days earlier, on Monday, 4th July 1938, at least one Hind was being flown from Abingdon toward Ringway, Manchester. Whether this was so that one of the first of the Battles was to have been collected is a possibility, or it may have been for some other reason but connected to the immanent arrival of the Battles. Unfortunately the pilot got lost en-route at the wrong side of the Pennine hills. He made a forced landing in a field near Hoyland Swaine, just north of Penistone but stalled on the approach to land and crashed. The location given in newspapers was "Crabtree". There are a few long and what appear reasonably level fields in the Crab Tree Hill / Crab Tree House area which would have made ideal landing fields and must have been the rough location of this mishap.

Pilot - P/O Cecil Cakebread RAF (39854).

Passenger - Name unknown.