You know what to expect with any book from the Images of War series.

Jon Diamond's The Battle of Okinawa 1945: The Real Story Behind Hacksaw Ridge, also released as The Pacific War's Last Invasion, examines Operation Iceberg, the American campaign to capture Okinawa, an island 350 miles from Japan and the Allies intended staging ground for an eventual invasion.

As Diamond explains, the lengthy campaign pitted the U.S. Tenth Army, composed of the Army XXIV Corps and the Marines III Amphibious Corps, against Japan's 32nd Army and Imperial Navy.

He provides a thorough history in text, but the photos are what make the book. Turn at random to a page and you'll find something worth your attention. For instance, I flipped the book open at page 116-17 and was amazed by the photos: one shows Marine fighter planes silhouetted against countless AA tracer rounds fired at a nighttime Japanese air raid; another shows crew members on the USS Missouri reacting as a kamikaze plane dives low before crashing into their ship; and the third shows the USS Bunker Hill, a carrier, ablaze after being hit by two kamikaze fighters.

Wow. These are astonishing photos, a poignant and powerful record of the war.

There's plenty of diversity on display, too. A random assortment include maybe two dozen Marine riflemen hitching a ride atop a tank; a BAR gunner firing across a hostile landscape as a nearby Marine prepares to throw a grenade; a soldier shoots liquid flame into a Japanese bunker after explosives were hurled inside; flares light up the night sky over Okinawa in an effort to find enemy positions; soldiers huddle in the rain by a radio to listen to a broadcast of Germany's surrender in the European theater of war.

I've read through several books in the Images of War series, and I've enjoyed them all -- but this is, by far, one of the best.