The U.S. and North Korea almost went to war over a single poplar tree in the demilitarized zone
Operation Paul Bunyan (no joke) was serious business
The tree was a serious problem, decided the United Nations Command. The large, leafy frame of the 80-foot Normandy poplar was obstructing the view of a vital checkpoint at the mouth of the Bridge of No Return. So, on the morning of August 18, 1976, a cadre of soldiers assembled in the most volatile area of the Korean Demilitarized Zone to cut it back. Fifteen men set out on the task — five South Korean civilian laborers and ten UNC officers as escorts. Not all would return.
The prosaic mission turned out to be far more dangerous than the team had anticipated. They were not made aware that two weeks earlier, on August 6, South Korean soldiers mounted a similar effort to fell the tree, but aborted it after being threatened by North Korean soldiers. And the day before that first incident, North Korea made a saber-rattling announcement that the United States’ and South Korea’s positions were “directly igniting the fuse of war.”
U.S Army Captain Arthur G. Bonifas led the military escort, supervising the Korean Service Corps workers as they mounted ladders and laid their saws and axes into the tree. Because of firearm limits in the Joint Security Area, Bonifas did not carry a side arm, though a handful in the UNC detail did.
Some 15 to 20 minutes passed before a North Korean officer, Lt. Pak Chul, arrived to warn the soldiers to cease the operation. He told them to cease trimming the tree “because Kim Il Sung personally planted it and nourished it and it’s growing under his supervision.” Pak had been named “Bulldog” by forces on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area for his indiscriminate aggression, and in this case, Bonifas ignored him, and urged the men to keep working.
Pak sent word back to the North Korean side, and in return a truck came bearing about 20 soldiers, armed with blunt melee weapons like pipes and clubs. Pak commanded the team to stop cutting the tree another time, but Bonifas instructed them to continue, and turned his back to Pak.
Then, Pak put his wristwatch in his pocket to protect it from being stained or damaged and yelled “kill the bastards” in Korean. The mob of North Korean officers suddenly enveloped the UNC troops with a vicious and bludgeoning assault.
Officers situated at an observation post recorded the attack, producing ample (if distant) photograph and video. No member of the UNC forces fired their weapons, an event later attributed to the suddenness and the close quarters of the assault. South Korean soldiers dropped their axes, and North Korean soldiers seized them, attacking Capt. Bonifas, who lay dead and mutilated on the pavement.
Eight U.N. soldiers were badly injured in the assault, and another man, Lt. Mark Barret, was fatally injured. He was found alive and bloodied in the grass, but soon died of head trauma, marking the second murder to come from the axe incident. “I remember that photographs of the murdered officers came to the office,” recalled one military official. “I had never seen such brutality in my life.”
Word of the incident enraged Washington. North Korea officially blamed the other side, describing the event beginning when “American imperialist aggressors sent in 14 hoodlums with axes into the Joint Security Area to cut the trees on their own accord,” before claiming that such an action should be agreed upon beforehand, and that the Americans suddenly attacked the North Koreans. “Our guards could not but resort to self-defense,” they claimed.
President Gerald Ford called the North Korean actions “vicious and unprovoked murder.” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisted that North Korean blood needed to be spilled, favoring a bombing campaign (no surprise there). Many suspected that the swift assembly and attack signified a premeditated effort. But the president wanted to show American strength and power while mitigating the risk for escalation into war.
After three days of deliberation and planning, the armed forces initiated Operation Paul Bunyan (seriously) on the morning of August 21, 1976. Japan was put on high alert ahead of the mission, and all in the Joint Security Area prepared for possible conflict. North Korea readied itself with 150 to 200 armed troops, and established two-man machine gunning positions.
The operation was executed by a team of 110 troops, 64 of whom were Korean tae kwon do experts. A handful came armed with chainsaws and descended upon the poplar. Swarming above and standing at the ready was a garrison of tactical military equipment, including 27 helicopters and farther off, three B-52 bombers.
They required 42 minutes to trim the tree, three minutes longer than estimated. Soldiers left standing a six-foot-long section of the trunk to mark the position of the axe murder incident. In 1987, a bronze plaque was put in its place.
The U.S. response was effective in its show of force and its deterrence of further conflict. In an Army War College study, Operation Paul Bunyan was credited with highlighting the “following principles: the North Koreans will negotiate when threatened or when they hope to gain important concessions not available by other means. North Korea seeks the appearance of legitimacy and respects power and force more than law and international norms of conduct.”
For North Korea’s part, last August the nation commemorated the 40th anniversary of the incident by reasserting that the U.S. attacked first. “When our soldiers tried to stop the U.S.’s outrageous behaviour,” state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun wrote, “the villains suddenly swung their deadly weapons, including axes, and attacked our forces like a pack of wolves”—their regard for the truth none improved in the intervening 40 years.
