File:In front of them all (8747501818).jpg

The hats of Company Commander Captain Arthur Bonifas and 1LT Mark Barrett, killed by North Korean soldiers during the infamous axe murder incident (Korean: 판문점 도끼살인사건, 板門店도끼殺人事件,도끼蠻行事件) on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The U.S. officers had been part of a work party cutting down a tree in the JSA. Three days later, the U.S. and South Korea launched Operation Paul Bunyan, an operation that combined a return to cut down the tree with a show of force to intimidate North Korea into backing down. North Korea then accepted responsibility for the earlier killings. The incident is also known as the hatchet incident and the poplar tree incident and "The Tree Trimming Incident" because the object of the conflict was a poplar tree standing in the JSA.