[1]: 30  This threat spurred Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer to direct CINCPAC to consolidate two existing plans: Fracture Deep, formulated in July 1971 and Proud Bunch, proposed on 18 November 1971.

Meanwhile, between 16 and 19 December, in separate Operation Barrel Roll air actions supporting a desperate stand by General Vang Pao’s forces near Long Tieng, Laos, three F-4 Phantoms were lost.

On 18 December a VPAF MiG-21 downed the first U.S. aircraft since June 1968, a USAF F-4D flying a combat air patrol over the north, approximately 70 miles (110 km) west/northwest of Bái Thượng.

[3] Over 200 USAF and US Navy planes conducted 1025 sorties striking targets as close as 75 miles (121 km) south of Hanoi.

[4]: 203 Although Christmas Day had been clear, the weather closed down on the morning of December 26 just as two flights of USAF F-4s were approaching the Thanh Hóa barracks and truck repair shop.

Effective LORAN bombing required photography annotated to show the target's exact relationship with the navigation beacons, but this painstaking work had not yet been done for most of North Vietnam.

[2]: 31 The strike on Quang Lang Air Base was among the most accurate, with more than 160 craters appearing in photographs after about two hundred bombs had been dropped.

[5] Aside from indicating that the Nixon administration might be willing to resume full-scale bombing of North Vietnam, the operation did not achieve very impressive results.