[2][3] NAMRU-2 was founded as Naval Medical Research Unit 2, at Rockefeller University in New York City in 1944 with Captain Thomas Rivers as commanding officer.

It moved to Guam in 1945 to study medical problems of the Navy and Marine Corps during World War II pacific operations.

[2] In 1955 Commander Robert Allan Phillips convinced US naval leadership that a research presence was needed in the pacific region.

In the 1990s NAMRU-2 performed cutting-edge research on the use of primaquine as primary prophylaxis for plasmodium falciparum malaria in Javanese men living in Irian Jaya.

In 1947 NAMRU-2 developed a therapeutic regimen for cholera utilizing whole blood and plasma-specific gravity as guides, this work was a breakthrough in determining life-saving extracellular fluid requirements.