In response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident when the destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy of the United States Navy engaged North Vietnamese ships, sustaining light damage[1] as they 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 5 August 1964.

[2] The operation consisted of 64 strike sorties of aircraft from the aircraft carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation against North Vietnamese naval vessels (mostly Swatow gunboats--only two were torpedo boats) and the oil storage depot at Vinh.

Another, Lt. (jg) Everett Alvarez Jr.[3] an A-4 Skyhawk pilot, became the first U.S. Navy prisoner of war in Vietnam.

[5] Pilots estimated that the Vinh raid destroyed 10 percent of North Vietnam's entire petroleum storage, together with the destruction of or damage to 29 P-4 torpedo boats or gunboats.

The air operations following Pierce Arrow would swell so that by war's end, the United States bombing campaign was the longest and heaviest in history.