You've definitely heard of Pearl Harbor. But how much do you know about the Doolittle Raid that followed?

The United States was left reeling by the devastating attack by Japan on its naval forces in Hawaii. The U.S. military wanted a win, and fast -- the nation's morale was low and needed a boost in confidence in order to focus on beating both Japan and Germany in the war.

John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll provide a wealth of detail on the ambitious air assault on Tokyo. In this Images of Aviation book -- usually published as Images of War -- they give in-depth and highly detailed accounts of the preparation, execution and aftermath of the bombing raid that blackened Japan's imperial eye.

The text includes verbatim transcripts from Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's report on the raid after the fact, as well as reports from the pilot of each bomber that flew on the mission. The book provides a photo of each flight crew and provides details of each individual mission -- their targets, any Japanese ships or airplanes encountered along the way, the results of their bombing run and the aftermath, which for most of them was a crash landing in or near China, but for some led to capture, imprisonment, torture and in some cases execution.

As one might expect from any book in the Images line, this volume is packed cover to cover with photographs from the raid -- preparations, the voyage toward Japan, the precarious take-offs, the bombing runs themselves and the events that followed. You'll see plenty of photos of Navy ships at sea and the bombers in flight, as well as the men who sailed those ships and flew those planes.

There is some remarkable photography on display here, and it tells an important, often overlooked chapter in World War II history. I have read and reviewed numerous books in the Images series, and this is certainly one of my favorites.