<p>The strike left behind a badly damaged bridge and some shaken and dead defenders. The lead strike had dropped one span, and the two following units had dropped two spans, both on the north side of the bridge. One of the 85-mm flak batteries at the bridge was reduced to smoking ruin, but the other survived. Two missile sites were pounded into dust, and several more were suppressed successfully during the attack. The Doumer bridge had taken the brunt of hits and near-misses from 94 tons of bombs. And it was restored and carrying traffic again by 3 October.
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<p>That 11 August strike was only the first of many. A second was mounted on 25 October, and unloaded 63 tons of bombs from 21 F-105s, against knocking out the bridge. It was back in service by 20 November. On 14 and 18 December, 50 F-105s again visited the bridge, and dropped another 90 tons of the big 3,000-lb bombs. By this time the North Vietnamese had got the message, and began building a bypass rail pontoon bridge about 5 miles (8 km) further downriver, which opened to traffic in mid-April 1968.
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<p>Paul Doumer's big bridge had been attacked by 177 bombers that had dropped 380 tons of bombs. By the time of the last strike of the 1967 air campaign, the defenses were known to include more than 300 anti-aircraft batteries of varying calibers, 84 missile sites with four to six launchers each, and 24 MiG-17 and MiG-21 interceptors. Countless rounds of anti-aircraft artillery had been fired at the attackers, and 109 missiles were launched, according to strike force reports. Two planes were lost to flak—neither during the first strike in August—and 15 were damaged.
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<p>But the bridge was to endure, almost until the end of hostilities, and it was to absorb more punishment in future strikes.
