The Christmas Day Bombings in late December, 1972, codenamed Operation Linebacker II, were the heaviest bomber strikes of the Vietnam War, ordered by US President Nixon, against North Vietnamese Army forces in North Vietnam and Laos.

Some 200 American B-52s bombed Hanoi and Haiphong with devastating results. However, at least 15 and as many as 34 Air Force B-52s were shot down in the operation. Privately the administration knew that the Christmas Bombings could not continue indefinitely.

The war was a legacy Nixon had inherited from his three immediate predecessors, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Nixon had previously tried to "end US involvement in Vietnam," but saw the government of South Vietnam as uninterested in peace, and taking the US defense forces for granted. The escalated bombing attacks were to serve as a demonstration of the destructiveness of the war, in the hopes of forcing the South Vietnamese government back to peace talks with North Vietnam.

Nixon claimed that the bombings were successful in the short term, and the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending US involvement in Vietnam. However, the treaty signed in January offered no substantial differences from the treaty Nixon dismissed in October. The bombings did little to influence Hanoi's position.

The peace talks would dissolve, and the NVA would overrun South Vietnam over the next couple of years, unifying Vietnam under the communist-allied rule.

Note: The term "Christmas Day Bombings" is misleading. Operation Linebacker II commenced on December 18 and ended on December 29, but sorties were only flown on 11 of these days; bombing was halted on Christmas.