A forgotten binder, a remarkable collection of wartime writings and sketches, and the story of an American artillery battery told by the men who lived it. Decades after World War II, Patrick W. Naughton Jr. discovered a worn black binder at an estate sale in Northern Virginia. Inside were yellowed, hand-typed pages and original drawings preserving the story of Baker Battery, 881st Field Artillery Battalion, 69th Infantry Division—a history written and illustrated by the soldiers themselves. Baker Battery Goes to War brings that extraordinary record to the public for a new generation. Through firsthand accounts, original sketches, military records, and carefully researched context, readers follow the men from grueling training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, across the Atlantic, and into combat during the final drive through Germany. Unlike a conventional unit history written decades later, this book keeps the soldiers’ own voices at its center—their humor, frustrations, hardships, observations, and memories of war. Naughton provides the strategic and operational background needed to understand their experiences without overwhelming the men whose words form the heart of the book. The story reaches beyond the gun crews. It includes the wiremen, radio operators, medics, mechanics, clerks, cooks, supply personnel, and others who kept an artillery battery functioning under combat conditions. The volume also preserves individual stories, rosters, replacements, promotions, awards, and other records so that the men themselves are not forgotten. The book became deeply personal for Naughton, a retired U.S. Army officer and military historian. Much of it was written while he underwent surgery and chemotherapy for Stage III colorectal cancer. During that struggle, he found strength in the soldiers whose history he was preserving. Baker Battery Goes to War is more than a battlefield narrative. It is an act of historical preservation—a rare opportunity to experience World War II through the words and drawings of the men who were there. For readers of World War II history, military history, veterans’ stories, battlefield memoirs, and primary-source accounts, Baker Battery Goes to War offers an intimate and richly documented view of the citizen-soldiers behind the guns. first-hand, World War II, WWII, 881st Field Artillery Battalion, 69th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, European Theater, soldier stories, wartime sketches, military history, Patrick W. Naughton Jr.