Operation FLAMING DART

February 8, 1965

An officer gives the launch signal to the pilot of a Coral Sea (CVA-43) A-4 Skyhawk heading for a bo

Overview

President Johnson orders airstrikes against North Vietnamese military targets. They are codenamed Operation FLAMING DART. U.S. Navy carrier aircraft strike enemy installations near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, on February 7. The next day, U.S. Air Force and South Vietnamese aircraft strike North Vietnamese barracks and antiaircraft sites near the DMZ. These are the first U.S. Air Force strikes against North Vietnam.1

¹Carl Berger, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: An Illustrated Account (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1977), 69; Robert F. Futrell, The Advisory Years to 1965, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1981), 265–266; Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict Volume II (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1986), 496–497; Ronald Bruce Frankum, Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975, (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD.: 2005), 15–18; Spencer C. Tucker, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 214–215; Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 58–61.