After returning from service in Egypt with the Australian Imperial Force, the personnel of the 2/2 Australian General Hospital were transferred to a new tent hospital at the remote Watten railway siding south of Hughenden.

The hot, humid, dusty conditions made living and nursing difficult. Selection of the hospital site on an area of soft, boggy black soil had been criticised by the building surveyor, who asked for confirmation of his instructions, saying that if the hospital were built there 'it would be the joke of the district'. However, the Department of Interior confirmed that it was to be built on the site selected for strategic reasons, the location having been chosen by senior Army officials.

In late 1942, some months after the arrival of the 2/2 AGH, the hospital was devastated by a cyclonic storm and was abandoned after tents were blown down and the whole area flooded. Rows of concrete floor slabs and gravelled roads now mark the extent of the Watten general hospital site.