Axe Murder Incident Memorial

The Korean axe murder incident, also known domestically as the Panmunjom axe atrocity incident, 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 in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. 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.