September 25, 2012

The Fifty-fifth General Hospital, “the Underground Hospital,” at Robinson Maneuver Training Center in Pulaski County was activated on May 25, 1943, during the United States’ involvement in World War II. It was the brainchild of then-commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chute Gill of the U.S. Army Medical Corps. The Underground Hospital experiment sought to simulate battle conditions and assess the potential for providing protected medical care at or near the frontlines. Only ruins remain of the facility, as shown in this 2008 photograph.