Navy A-3 Skywarrior refuels a battle damaged A-4 Skyhawk for successful return to carrier USS Hancock, Vietnam.

The A-4 was a wet wing aircraft which meant that all of the fuel except for a small amount in the fuselage cell was contained inside of the wing. This meant that a large hole in the wing usually resulted in a lost aircraft untill the Douglas engineers  developed a wing bypass switch which would direct fuel from the inflight refueling probe directly to the fuselage fuel cell and bypass the wing. Since there was not enough fuel in the fuselage cell to return to the ship, an aircraft with a hole in the wing would have to plug into the tanker or "Whale" and remain attached to the tanker untill on short final.

This painting depicts an actual event which occured after a strike into North Vietnam.