Neither The Institute of Heraldry nor the reference book
U.S. Patches, Flashes, and Cloth Unit Insignia by insignia expert Barry Jason Stein have an entry for the 316th Station Hospital Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI), and the U.S. Army Center of Military History has no information regarding the unit’s origins, history, or lineage.
There is, however an extremely detailed history of the unit’s World War II service compiled by an organization called the WW2 US Medical Research Centre, which says the unit was activated in early 1943 near Medford, Oregon and deployed from New Jersey to England in late summer, arriving on 20 September 1943. It set up its first facilities in an existing brick building in the English county of Devon, between the small villages of Bovey Tracey and Newton Abbot about twenty-five miles northeast of the coastal city of Plymouth.
In addition to serving as a Station Hospital, the unit also operated several other types of Hospitals, including Transit, Prisoner-of-War, and Holding. In its first twelve months of overseas duty, the 316th Station Hospital treated 9,296 patients. You can read the full account of its World War II service, which includes atomic-level details of its staffing and operations, at the WW2 US Medical Research Center
Web page devoted to the unit.
The only other readily accessible public information on the unit is that it was based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at the time it was deployed as part of the 244th Medical Group in Operation Desert Storm. The unit's association with Pennsylvania is referenced in the motto of the insignia, “Keystone Of Life” (Pennsylvania is the Keystone state) and the image of a maroon keystone at the insignia’s base.
Full guidance on wear of the DUI is found in DA Pamphlet 670-1,
Section 21-22, "Distinctive unit insignia."We encourage visitors who have more information regarding the history and/or lineage of the 316th Station Hospital to
contact us so we can make that information available to other visitors interested in the unit or its insignias