Korean axe murder incident

Remains of the tree that was the object of the 1976 axe murder incident, as seen in 1984. Deliberately left standing after Operation Paul Bunyan, the stump was replaced by a monument in 1987.
North Korean and UNC forces during the 1976 axe attack

The Korean axe murder incident (Korean: 판문점 도끼살인사건; lit. Panmunjom axe murder incident), also known domestically as the Panmunjom axe atrocity incident (판문점 도끼 만행 사건), was the killing of two United Nations Command officers, Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The officers, from the United States Army, had been part of a work party cutting down a poplar tree in the JSA.

Three days later, US 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.