Operation Paul Bunyan — The Mother of All Logging Expeditions
The United States is known worldwide for having the most powerful military forces on Earth, as confirmed by Global Firepower. Helping to compose the ‘big stick’ America wields are such war machines as the M1 Abrams main battle tank, the equally legendary AR-15 assault rifle, and the F-15 (which, by the way, is the world’s deadliest fighter jet). After the Second World War that helped cement the USA’s power, successive presidents have brought its full military might to help wipe out communists, military juntas and jihadists alike.
But there aren’t many who would have expected this sleeping titan to awaken and kick off a cataclysmic war over a single poplar tree. Yet in 1976, at the height of the Cold War, this exact event very nearly came to pass in Korea.
Our story begins on the 18th of August. The United Nations Command (UNC) assigned to watch over part of the Korean Demilitarised Zone segregating North Korea and South Korea had set up two outposts to keep an eye on the so-dubbed Bridge of No Return, where prisoners of war were exchanged after the Korean War. These outposts were Command Post No. 3 and Observation Post No. 5 — the northernmost outposts along the KDMZ, close to the North Korean village of Panmunjom.
There was one small problem: a thirty-metre tall poplar tree had grown in between the two outposts. CP 3 was only visible from OP 5 in the winter because of this. This posed a number of problems, chief of all the observers in OP 5 would have little idea of an impending North Korean attack, should some overzealous officer decide to try his luck (this will become important in just a moment). For you see, North and South Korea were — and still are — technically at war with one another despite the KDMZ. And the North have long been standoffish towards the US, who is allied with the South.
The solution was ostensibly an easy one: trim the tree a little bit and line of sight would be restored. US Army Captain Arthur Bonifas was selected to lead the mission alongside his South Korean counterpart Captain Kim and the US platoon leader in the area, First Lieutenant Mark Barrett. Bonifas was selected because he had dealt with instances of North Korean belligerence before, most notably when a group of US soldiers were held by them at gunpoint.
The expedition, which consisted of five Korean Service Corps personnel (who would carry out the actual trimming) and 11 armed soldiers to guard them, made their way into the Joint Security Area (JSA) where the obstructive tree had grown. As work began, everything seemed like it would work out.
Enter Senior Lieutenant Pak Chul, a North Korean officer known as a headache for the UNC forces who was thusly appended the nickname ‘Lieutenant Bulldog’. For fifteen minutes, Pak and fourteen other North Korean soldiers observed the trimming before they abruptly demanded the UNC withdraw. Bonifas ordered the UNC to continue trimming the tree, paying little heed to Pak’s demands.
After a moment of back and forth, Pak sent one of his soldiers across the Bridge of No Return back to Northern lines. Not more than a few minutes later, twenty more North Korean soldiers arrive — this time carrying weapons. Once more Pak shouted at the UNC to go home. In a display of contempt, Bonifas turned his back on the North Korean lieutenant.
To say Pak took exception to that would be a catastrophic understatement. The North Koreans at once charged at the UNC soldiers with clubs and axes, bludgeoning Bonifas to death, forcing Barrett to flee and injuring all but one American soldier. The combat lasted no longer than half a minute before Pak and his men were driven off, but the damage was done. Bonifas’ body was recovered, but Barrett was nowhere to be found.
An hour and a half afterward, UNC forces observed North Korean guards behaving strangely around an emergency egress road, where a depression obscured their activities. When Barrett was reported missing by OP 5, the UNC at once mobilised a search and rescue team, where they found that the lieutenant had been hacked to bits by the North Koreans. He died on the journey to a military hospital.
All this bloodshed along one of the world’s most volatile borders over a poplar tree that the North Koreans believed was sacred. It was allegedly planted by the nation’s founder, Kim Il-sung himself.
Needless to say, when word of the incident broke, the UNC was furious. The Americans considered launching immediate artillery strikes on the North Korean side, only to be talked out of it by South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The North Koreans had four times the artillery that the UNC did, and a good few of those guns were trained on Seoul, the South Korean capital. Three days of crisis talks took place in the White House, where President Gerald Ford hosted US and South Korean generals to discuss what to do.
On the 21st of August, the UNC executed its plan. Two eight-man military engineering teams entered the JSA armed with chainsaws. They were to be accompanied by 30 armed security personnel and demolitionists ready to blow up the bridges to stop the North Koreans from advancing, plus 64 South Korean special forces operatives (among whom was none other than the current South Korean president, Moon Jae-in). In the skies overhead, an entire US infantry company in transport helicopters, accompanied by seven attack helicopters, lay in wait. Behind the helicopters was a flight of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers, guarded by US F-4 Phantom jet fighters and South Korean F-5s and F-86s.
Behind this almighty force, dubbed Task Force Vierra, were 12,000 US and South Korean soldiers, backed up by tanks, heavy artillery and air defence. Offshore, the USS Midway and its accompanying carrier group sat ready to provide support, and more B-52s, these ones carrying nuclear warheads, began to orbit the JSA. Every UNC force along the entire KDMZ was put on high alert in preparation for battle.
The military operation was dubbed Operation Paul Bunyan. The mission: cut down that blasted tree.
The North Koreans went straight into panic mode. Two hundred heavily armed soldiers were bundled onto buses and dispatched to meet this army. When they arrived, however, the commanding officer of the UNC task force politely informed them — backed up by enough firepower to blast Pyongyang into a thin paste — that a United Nations work party had entered the JSA to continue what Bonifas and his team had started three days prior.
After the operation was completed — 43 minutes after the engineers had arrived — Kim Il-sung had a personal message relayed to the UNC. It said: “It was a good thing that no big incident occurred at Panmunjom for a long period. However, it is regretful that an incident occurred in the Joint Security Area, Panmunjom this time. An effort must be made so that such incidents may not recur in the future. For this purpose both sides should make efforts. We urge your side to prevent the provocation. Our side will never provoke first, but take self-defensive measures only when provocation occurs. This is our consistent stand.”
Kim’s statement was significant for one key reason: this was the first time that North Korea had admitted responsibility for a violent incident in the KDMZ. Operation Paul Bunyan, tailored as an intimidating show of force, was a resounding success — one US intelligence analyst reported that the sighting of Task Force Vierra blew the North Koreans’ minds. Satisfied, the UNC emphasised Kim’s admission as a step in the right direction towards eventual peace in Korea.
And what of the obstructive poplar tree that started all this mess? Well, after being cut down, its wood was fashioned into a swagger stick carried by General William J. Livsey, commander of the US Eighth Army from 1984 to 1987, as well as his successor, General Louis C. Menetrey. Today the site of the tree is marked by a stone memorial to Captain Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett, where the UNC has conducted ceremonies to honour the fallen men on anniversaries of the incident.
Thank you all for reading, and I will see you again next week.
~ Harry