Aviation began at the site in 1910 when pioneer pilot Edwin Rowland Moon used the meadows belonging to North Stoneham Farm as a takeoff and landing spot for his monoplane, Moonbeam Mk II. The site became known as Eastleigh Airfield. The Royal Flying Corps earmarked the site as an aircraft acceptance base during the First World War, but when forces from the United States Navy Air Service (NAS) arrived in 1917 it was handed over to them and designated NAS Eastleigh. Work on the building of hangars which had begun under the Royal Flying Corps was accelerated. At the peak of the American presence, some 4,000 officers and men were billeted in tents and huts along the adjacent London to Southampton railway line. After the war, the site became a transit camp for refugees, mainly Russian, who wished to sail to America from the port of Southampton. Shipping companies Cunard and White Star Line (the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company), together with the Canadian Pacific Railway, formed the Atlantic Park Hostel Company to house them temporarily. In 1921, the hangars were converted into dormitories, kitchens and dining rooms. The hostel was intended as a short-term clearing house for those trans-migrants changing ships, but following changes to United States immigration law which restricted entry under national origins quotas, some residents were forced to stay much longer. In 1924 about 980 Ukrainian Jewish would-be emigrants were cared for at the hostel. Some of them were still there seven years later, stranded between the US and UK which would not accept them, and unable to return to the countries they had fled. Atlantic Park had a school, library, and synagogue; the refugees formed football teams that played local sides and took part in local events, such as Eastleigh carnival. At the height of its use, 20,000 passed through Atlantic Park in 1928 but then numbers started to fall away, leading to the closure of the hostel in 1931. In 1932, Southampton Corporation purchased the site, and it became Southampton Municipal Airport. This was allowed for by the Southampton Corporation Act 1931, which allowed for the creation of a public aerodrome. By 1935, part of the site was being used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was briefly known as RAF Eastleigh before it became RAF Southampton in 1936. Also in 1936, Supermarine opened a flight test facility on the site and built a large new Flight Shed at the south end of the aerodrome in 1937-38, and construction of the vast Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft factory between this and Wide Lane soon followed. The latter factory was better known post-war for production of the Ford Motor Company's Transit vans until this finally closed in 2013 - leaving only the almost forgotten Supermarine Flight Shed which had accommodated so many Spitfires locally before their first flights and deliveries to the RAF. Sadly, despite its obvious historical significance, this 84-year-old building is now set for demolition and redevelopment with modern industrial units. The first test flight of the Supermarine Spitfire took place at the airport on 5 March 1936, an event commemorated in 2004 by the erection of a two-thirds-size sculpture of K5054, the prototype Spitfire, at the road entrance. On 5 March 2006, five restored Spitfires took off from Southampton Airport to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the first test flight of the Spitfire. The local council wanted to rename the airport after R. J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire. However, the airport owner at the time, Heathrow Airport Holdings, did not agree. The military site was transferred to naval command in 1939, renamed RNAS Eastleigh (HMS Raven), and spent most of the war in a ground and air training role for the Royal Navy. Owing to the 'HMS' designation in the airport's name, Nazi propaganda inaccurately reported that HMS Raven had been sunk when a bombing raid hit the airport. It passed back into civilian ownership in April 1946.