On a slice of wood reads "It is a piece of the Normandy Poplar Tree which was thee Aug 18, 1976 incident in which two UNC officers were murdered by the NKA at Panmunjom, Korea." The story behind it is terrifying in that World War III could have broken out at any time during this incident.
It's been more than twenty years since the Korean War that left a line marking the communist North from the democratic South called the Demilitarized Zone or the DMZ, which was a two and a half mile wide strip of land. These two countries could go to war in an instant. Just recently an American soldier had been kidnapped and rescued. 50 American soldiers and 1000 Korean soldiers had been killed along the DMZ over the past ten years. In the South, the border is guarded mostly by South Korean soldiers and American soldiers.
But in 1976 there was an object that stood in the way of the South's view of the North. A Normandy Poplar tree. There is no telling what nefarious machinations the North Koreans could be hiding behind that tree which is over 80 feet tall. On August 18 a group of soldiers goes in to prune the branches. A group of North Korean soldiers go in and order the team to stop that the tree is sacred to Kim Il Sung, which everyone knows to be false. But the team refuses to back down. A scuffle breaks out and two American officers, Captain Arthur Bonifas and Lieutenant Mark Barrett are killed, while five South Korean troops are wounded. This came to be known as the "Axe Murder Incident".
The North Koreans believe that the Americans will leave Korea now like they left Vietnam. They certainly did not believe that they would be doing any tree trimming after Kim Jong-Il spun a story that the Americans started the whole thing and are at fault. Ford and Kissinger believe differently and demand an apology.
When news of this reaches the ears of the head of United Nations command General Richard Stillwell of the U.S. Army he doesn't overreact. Many find that the General was a paragon of military officials, highly experienced, and very professional. Some of his men feel a call of realization is necessary with air strikes and a land invasion. Stillwell believes this could spiral out of control and lead to World War III.
His solution is to chop down the tree. On August 21 he sends in a tree felling crew commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Verra along with an escort of 23 armored trucks, 27 helicopters, and dozens of fighter jets. The missions is named Operation Paul Bunyan. Stillwell initiated the largest, most expensive tree trimming in history. The North Koreans sent 150 sharpshooters to the edge of the DMZ. The military in Korea was put on DEFCON 3, the highest state of military readiness. Only one of three times that has happened with September 11, 2001, being the most recent.
Despite armed sides, the lumberjacks focused on their mission without anyone firing a single shot. A few days later Kim Il Sung expresses regret over the loss of the American lives, something he had never done before and no member of the Kim Dynasty has done since. The military promoted Bonifas posthumously to Major and renamed Camp Kitty Hawk Camp Bonifas at the DMZ after him. Slices of the tree with the text are handed out to commanders in the mission as thanks for cool heads that World War III was averted. So because of a simple tree, we came so close to a world war of epic proportions. It's a good thing we had calm heads like General Stillwell to guide us through such a difficult time. It also reminds us why we have soldiers along the DMZ at a time when people were wondering why it was necessary. Today we know why as Kim Jong-Il is a dangerous threat all on his own. But once we had no idea how dangerous the North Koreans were and how easy war could come to us.
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