Additional funding was provided through contributions to the local Red Cross, including $15,000 from Mr. & Mrs. Josiah K. Lilly, all totaling $50,000 to cover the cost of acquiring and moving the necessary equipment. Staffing was primarily garnered from Indiana medical personnel, most coming from Indianapolis including Drs. Edmund D. Clark, Orange G. Pfaff, and Carleton B. McMulloch. By August of 1917, the huge effort was organized with a staff of 180, and the work of packing for overseas shipment began. They began with an encampment at Ft. Harrison, Indianapolis under the command of Major Edmund D. Clark, and were officially inducted into the US Army on September 1, 1917, with control passing to the War Department from the Red Cross. The nurses trained at Columbia War Hospital in New York City and St. Mary's Hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey. On December 4th, 1917 they set sail for France on the USS George Washington. See: http://www.wwvets.com/WW1_Navy.asp

Contrexeville, France is located in the foothills of the Vosges mountains, 220 miles East of Paris, and had served as a summer resort featuring mineral waters during more peaceful times. The local casino and four other large hotels provided an ideal facility to be adapted for a military hospital. It was approximately fifty miles behind the front lines with an important rail line running through the town. The location necessitated the hospital size to be increased to 1,250 beds. The newly constructed Royal Hotel was converted to an isolation ward for contagious diseases providing room for 200 patients.  The resort hotel was utilized as the rooms could easily be converted for hospital usage.

All of the buildings had to be cleaned and sterilized, lighting adapted, with much plumbing and carpentry required.  The original equipment for 500 beds, all shipped from Indiana, provided one of the best-equipped hospital units in the A. E. F.  They also had the unfortunate distinction of the first casualty of an American Nurse on foreign soil.  May Berry died of pneumonia contracted on the voyage to France.  The second contingent of personnel from southwestern Iowa joined the personnel from Indiana in the Spring of 1917 forming Hospital Unit R.  The hospital, inspired by J. K. Lilly and with the efforts of the Red Cross, provided service to 9,698 soldiers during the war with only 118 deaths. The hospital later served as an evacuation unit, receiving patients from the field hospitals, and preparing them for the convalescent hospitals in 1918.  It closed on January 7, 1919. two months after the war ended.