Axe Murder Incident
Coordinates: 37°57′21.59″N 126°40′21.33″E / 37.9559972°N 126.6725917°E
The axe murder incident (Korean: 판문점 도끼살인사건; Hanja: 板門店도끼殺人事件,도끼蠻行事件; literally, Panmunjom axe murder incident) was the killing of two United States Army officers, Arthur Bonifas and Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The U.S. Army officers had been part of a work party cutting down a poplar tree in the JSA that partially blocked the view of United Nations (U.N.) observers, when they were assaulted by the North Koreans and killed.
Three days later, American and South Korean forces launched Operation Paul Bunyan, an operation that cut down the tree with a show of force to intimidate North Korea into backing down, which it did. North Korea then accepted responsibility for the earlier killings.
The incident is also known alternatively as the hatchet incident, the poplar tree incident, and the tree trimming incident.
In the Joint Security Area, near the Bridge of No Return, a 100-foot (30 m) poplar tree blocked the line of sight between a United Nations Command (UNC) checkpoint (CP No. 3) and an observation post (OP No. 5).
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