Operation Pierce Arrow

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Operation Pierce Arrow was a U.S. military operation during the Vietnam War.

In response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident when the USS Maddox of the United States Navy was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats once on August 2 1964 and allegedly again on August 4 as it gathered electronic intelligence while in the international waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S.President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered Operation "Pierce Arrow" which was conducted on August 5. The operation consisted of 64 strike sorties from the aircraft carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation against the torpedo boat bases of Hon Gai, Loc Chao, Quang Khe, and Ben Thuy, and the oil storage depot at Vinh. The U.S. lost two aircraft to anti-aircraft fire, with one pilot killed and another, Ensign Everett Alvarez, becoming the first U.S. Prisoner of War in Vietnam. Pilots estimated they destroyed 90 percent of the petroleum storage facility at Vinh together with the destruction or damage to 25 P-4 torpedo boats, which represented almost two-thirds of the North Vietnamese torpedo boat forces.

This incident was the start of nine years of U.S. air operations over North Vietnam and Southeast Asia, attempting to destroying the infrastructure, war materiel, and military units needed by North Vietnam and its Viet Cong allies to prosecute the guerrilla war in the South. Pierce Arrow was followed by Operation Flaming Dart on February 7-11, 1965; Operation Rolling Thunder from March 2, 1965 to October 31, 1968; Operation Linebacker, May 9 to October 22, 1972; and Operation Linebacker II, December 18-29, 1972.

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