Operation Paul Bunyan

If we told you that World War III was in danger of happening over the trimming of a tree would you believe us? This was Operation Paul Bunyan. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:40Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:50Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and it's just us, and that's okay, because we can support one another and ourselves. We're grown men, and we feel good about things, especially us. Well, not especially, but equally with us. And this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  I mean, you told me, you sent me a text very early that said, put on your big boy pants today.

• 2:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because Jerry's not showing up.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I got him out, my breeches.

• 2:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah? Are they green jeans?

• 2:19Speaker 04

  Oh, I've got on green cords.

• 2:22Josh Clark?

  No.

• 2:24Speaker 04

  I do.

• 2:24Josh Clark?

  Wee do, wee do, wee do.

• 2:28Speaker 04

  These are kind of my favorites, actually, these forest green cords. Great for this time of year.

• 2:32Josh Clark?

  I don't remember those. I remember some like brownish, taupey, kind of shiny taupe ones. Am I making that up?

• 2:39Speaker 04

  No, I have, I have cords of many colors, much like Joseph.

• 2:44Josh Clark?

  Are they the thick whales or the thin whales?

• 2:47Speaker 04

  Uh, the thins. I don't get into the thick stuff anymore. That was 90s Chuck, probably.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I'll bet they're gonna make a comeback.

• 2:54Speaker 04

  I betcha.

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  Okay, I think we should start talking about this because we probably have some non-regular listeners who have military backgrounds who are like, what the hell is this? Who want to hear about Operation Paul Bunyan, which is the point of all this. And I'm guessing just from the title, there's probably a lot of people in the military who, who know what we're talking about already. It seems to be a fairly widespread, widely known incident that took place in 1976. We're just gonna call it an incident at the DMV, DMZ.

• 3:31Josh Clark?

  That was totally unintentional. An incident at the DMZ. That's what we're gonna start out calling it. We'll eventually maybe refine that over time. But we should probably talk about what the DMZ is in the first place, right?

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, and by the way, I'm looking real quick because I could have sworn this probably came from someone, but I usually make a note and I'm not seeing that. But I am seeing that Pop-Tarts came from Nelson Reynolds, so sorry for that, Nelson.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Sorry, Nelson.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  But yeah, the DMZ, I guess we should set up just sort of the, the deal between North Korea and South Korea and the United States post-World War II. Was the Soviets and the Americans got together and said, alright. Korea and Korea, obviously, got involved and said, we're going to be two nations. Let's confuse everybody and call the communist North Korea inside the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And call the democratic South Korea inside just the Republic of Korea. And if you've ever heard of the 38th parallel, that's the famous dividing line between these two.

• 4:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, North Korea and South Korea got divided after World War II because there was a power vacuum and the communists were fighting in the north and they were fighting the US friendly South Koreans. And the North Koreans were like, this can't stand. We want the whole peninsula. And they invaded and the Korean War broke out, like you said, and it lasted for three years. I always thought it was Americans who were fighting in Korea, but it turns out there were plenty of American troops, mostly American troops, but they were part of a UN command that was actually fighting the north along with the South Koreans.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's like 90% American forces. And you said it lasted three years. I think the Korean War is one of those that technically never ended.

• 5:14Josh Clark?

  True.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  Officially, because, I mean, that's kind of one of those nitpicky trivia questions.

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  That's a good one.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  That, you know, there was never an official treaty ending the war. They came to a truce or an armistice because of a stalemate, basically, after three years. But I think, you know, on the books, the Korean War never technically ended.

• 5:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's my understanding too. Well, good point. So, one of the big things about this armistice agreement was that it was like, okay, you guys, we need some separation here. And they literally separated North Korea from South Korea. Like you said, the dividing line runs roughly along the 38th parallel, but on either side of that border of North and South Korea, there's a buffer zone, the demilitarized zone, the DMZ I was referring to before. I think it's 2.4 miles wide total, 1.2 miles on either side. And that is like effectively the de facto border between North and South. No one's supposed to come into that no man's zone, no man's land, the DMZ, but...

• 6:16Josh Clark?

  Inside the DMZ, there's a little tiny village called the Panmujom. And I know of that from Billy Joel.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I knew he was gonna come up.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  That was it. And then some of the other Korean town names that came up like K-song and all this. I'm like, how do I know all these? How do they sound familiar? And then I realized watching MASH with my dad.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  And it's this little tiny militarized spot inside the demilitarized zone. And it's where North Korea and South Korea actually come together. Physically can come together in this, what's called the JSA, the Joint Security Area.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, so if they, over the years, have to meet to negotiate anything, that's where they meet. That's where the governments go. There's a very famous bridge there separating the two. The Bridge of No Return. It's very dramatic if you look at pictures of it. It's literally like, you know, on one side is one thing, on the other side is the other. And that's where they do prisoner exchanges and stuff like that. And these days, you know, it's, well, largely because of this incident, I think. It's not the same as it was back then.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  No.

• 7:24Speaker 04

  It's very separate. Back then, the Joint Security Area was, you know, they were, it was jointly patrolled. Like, you know, North Koreans and South Korean soldiers and American soldiers were patrolling the area at the same time. There was face-to-face contact. They would try to intimidate one another. They would, you know, curse at one another, maybe spit at one another. The Americans would play hopscotch on the bridge. The North Koreans would, you know, drive a truck really fast toward them and slam on the brakes. They would sneak up and bang on their checkpoint barracks at night and stuff like that. It was crazy to think that these kind of shenanigans were going on without any further, you know, sort of war breaking out.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  They all kind of seemingly took it in stride.

• 8:12Josh Clark?

  Well, that's what their orders were. The UN Command troops and the Americans in particular had specific orders to, like if you had to defend yourself physically because you were getting beat up, okay. But you did not shoot. You had to be shot at to draw your sidearm. And that was the most powerful weapon that anyone patrolling the joint security area had. They were often outfitted with axe handles, maybe batons. And that was about it. So the Americans had strict orders not to take the bait. And North Korean troops had essentially strict orders to provoke the Americans into attacking so that they could start a war again and it would be the Americans' fault.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Exactly. And this came largely from the guy in charge. I mean, you know, it came from on high, I'm sure, but it was filtered down through Captain Arthur Bonifos. He was a Vietnam vet. He was the JSA company commander. He was 33 years old. He was a big dude. He was 6'3". Apparently super popular, like a father figure as far as his command went. And the camp there at JSA is named Camp Bonifos after him. So you may see where this is headed.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  But he, you know, he believed in standing your ground, but not taking the bait, like you said. Like, he wanted big guys down there. He wanted to kind of intimidate. But the orders were always to back off if it came to blows. And sometimes it would, like, you know, you could get beat up or something and it would not escalate further, which is just crazy to think about.

• 9:46Josh Clark?

  It is. It's hard to imagine. You said that Bonifos was into intimidating without, you know, doing it, like just being physically intimidating.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:59Josh Clark?

  If you were assigned to patrol JSA, this was a really, really high stakes area. Still is today. Bill Clinton toured it in the 90s and went as far as out onto the bridge of no return. And he said later that Pemukjom is the scariest place on earth. That's a president saying that. He's probably been to some scary places and at least knows about them. So that really says quite a bit. So if you're assigned to this area, it's a big deal. And so you had to be over six feet tall, but you also had to be laid back by nature and rather cool-headed, like even when provoked. Like, they really tested the people who were assigned there.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, they'd walk up and they'd slap you and see what you did.

• 10:44Josh Clark?

  They would apparently, while they were interviewing you, that you'd have no idea. They'd just start shouting at you out of nowhere to see how you responded.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  Were they really?

• 10:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 10:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a really, that's a great chance to shout out. There's an Atavist article called "Acts of Evil," written by Josh Dean. And it's a really great detailed look at this whole thing that we're talking about today.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  That would be A-X-E, in this case, right?

• 11:10Josh Clark?

  Yep, very clever.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  Hmm. Bit of a, what do you call it? We're recording early, so I can't think of the word.

• 11:19Josh Clark?

  A foreshadowing?

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe that's it.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  A play on words, a pun?

• 11:24Speaker 04

  Nah, foreshadowing is probably it.

• 11:25Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  I think people are probably concerned because I couldn't think of foreshadowing.

• 11:29Josh Clark?

  I couldn't think of chemistry the other day, and it drove me crazy.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  Oh, man. Aging is real.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  And a privilege, as they say. So, before this incident that we're about to talk about, there was one example we should mention. When North Korean troops were kind of mussing the hair of a soldier named William Henderson, and he did not take it well. I guess he was into his hair or something. He got mad, took a swing, and got, I guess, a throat chop or something, and got a busted larynx. And such that Banafas wrote his wife and said, "Our mission here is to take the verbal abuse, the kicking, the shoving, but to not let it go any further. Major Henderson lost his cool and blew it. It's a natural reaction, but he should have known better."

• 12:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it was a big deal. So, I also saw that Henderson was provoked by a journalist who spat at him. When Henderson stood up, the journalist hit him. And then finally Henderson hit him back, and then all of a sudden, a bunch of North Korean troops jumped on him. But the fact that he took the bait was a big deal because he was a major. That means you're a big deal at a camp already. Like, you're fairly high up. So, him fighting back was, yeah, that was a big deal.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Uh, maybe an early-ish break here? It seems like a good dividing line.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  I think we should. We'll take a break, and we'll come back and talk about the tree that started the whole thing.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  All right.

• 13:00Josh Clark?

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• 15:34Speaker 04

  All right, Josh didn't pick up on my bad pun of the dividing line.

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, what was it?

• 15:39Speaker 04

  I said it's a dividing line, like, you know, the 38th parallel.

• 15:42Josh Clark?

  It just is so natural that-

• 15:44Speaker 04

  It's bad.

• 15:44Josh Clark?

  I totally missed it. It's also early for me, too.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  I couldn't tell, by the way, that that short stuff that you sent that we're gonna record later had a bunch of puns in it, and I didn't know if that was intentional or not.

• 15:56Josh Clark?

  I can think of one, and it was intentional.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  There were a couple.

• 16:00Josh Clark?

  Okay, you gotta point them out.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Boy, what a what a little tease of a whole different episode.

• 16:06Josh Clark?

  You're such a tease.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  So, all right, now we get to the Paul Bunyan, what what instigated the Paul Bunyan incident or operation.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  Which was this tree that you mentioned. There was a tree, it was a poplar tree, near the Bridge of No Return. And the thing you need to know about this tree, well, there's a few things, but one is that it blocked the view of the line of sight between these two UN command checkpoints.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  And that was a big deal because you needed an open line of sight between these checkpoints because, you know, there were incidents of like kidnapping and stuff like that and other shenanigans, and you just, you had to have that line of sight open.

• 16:45Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  So they said, the UNC was like, we gotta get rid of this tree. So they sent a couple of unarmed South Korean workers down there to just sort of figure out the best way to remove it. And the first sort of reaction was the North Korean guards chased them away. So that was sort of the the line in the sand was get out of here, get away from that tree.

• 17:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Apparently, they tried again a couple of days later and got rained out. And then finally, on August 18th, they were like, okay, we're just gonna go ahead and do this. Those first guys got chased off, so we're gonna essentially assign a few men to escort them. I think a 15-man team went over on August 18th, led by Captain Bonifos. And they started pruning the tree.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, just to prune at this point.

• 17:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they're just pruning it back. They just want to make sure that even during summer, they can see Checkpoint 3, the loneliest outpost in the world, because like you said, it's very dangerous to man that. So they're just pruning it, right? And very quickly, the North Koreans came over the Bridge of No Return. Because remember, mind-bogglingly, the joint security area was open. Like, the border didn't exist in the joint security area. So North Koreans and UN Command could just go wherever they want. So the North Koreans show up at this site, at the poplar tree, while it's being pruned. And they're led by Lieutenant Pak Chul. He was known as Lieutenant Bulldog by the UN Command troops,

• 18:12Josh Clark?

  because he was very confrontational, had provoked confrontation in the past plenty of times. And so he showed up, so you just immediately knew that this could go south pretty quickly.

• 18:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, and apparently, he said, you know, they wanted to keep that tree pristine, because Kim Il-sung personally planted it and nourished it, and it's growing under his supervision. So apparently, or at least they said it was a special tree, and to stand down.

• 18:40Josh Clark?

  Yes, because Kim Il-sung was the, he was the first Dear Leader. Kim Jong-un is his grandson.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and so the idea that Dear Leader planted that tree, I don't know if that's true. I never saw that, I just saw it like stated here or there, but at the very least, Pak Chul said that, right?

• 19:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm not sure if I buy that, given what we now have sort of suspected about this being a provocation, which we'll get to, but that sounds to me like, hey, let's tell them that, you know, it's a special tree.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like Pak Chul seemed like the kind who would just load you up on BS just to mess with you.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he called for even more reinforcements. I think about 30 more North Korean guards showed up. He ordered Captain Banifas to stop, but he turned his back on him, which I think was, you know, a pretty big insult.

• 19:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  On top of everything else. And as the story goes, one of the American soldiers saw Pak take off his wristwatch and put it in his pocket, which is, I guess akin to like Fonzie taking off his leather jacket. Like, it's about to happen.

• 19:50Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  And tried to warn Banifas, but it was too late by that point and Pak ordered the attack, basically by saying like, I think he said, "Kill the bastards," right?

• 19:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw a 1977 Army War College report on the incident, and that's what they said, so I'm prone to believe them.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  But he said it in Korean, obviously.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:10Josh Clark?

  But right after that, the men attacked. And actually, I saw Lieutenant Pak Chul assaulted Captain Banifas, who had, again, his back to Pak Chul.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:20Josh Clark?

  He hit him with the karate chop in the back of his neck and dropped Captain Banifas. And very, very sadly, Captain Banifas never got to his feet again.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:30Josh Clark?

  Like, immediately, he was set upon by, I saw, five to six North Korean troops, just started being beaten by them. And I guess the people who were cutting the tree had a couple of axes, these civilians, and they dropped their axes and ran. And the North Korean troops picked up the axes. And here is where the reason that this is called the DMZ Axe Incident begins.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  That's right. So Banifas was bludgeoned to death by these guys attacking him. And you can watch this, like, it was caught on film. It's very chaotic. You can't really get, I mean, it's kind of from far away, so you can't get a lot of detail.

• 21:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  But, you know, there are still shots in film of this stuff going on. So he was bludgeoned. First Lieutenant Mark Barrett was also beaten to death. He was chased down over a retaining wall. And, you know, sort of the, I mean, it's sad enough as it is, but Banifas was due to go home to his wife and three kids in three days. So it was, made it, you know, sort of especially brutal.

• 21:30Josh Clark?

  And not like for a visit, like this was his last three days in Korea.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:34Josh Clark?

  Where he was murdered by an axe by North Korean troops. It's almost like a parody. Like, it's almost too crazy to believe that that's how close he was to leaving Korea. He was also gonna be promoted to major, too. Like, he was, his life was like looking up when he was murdered.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, really sad.

• 21:52Josh Clark?

  So, um, this was a really, really big deal, as you can imagine. This is the first time that any UN command troops and any Americans had been killed in Korea since the end of the Korean War. It was a huge provocation. And there was a big question now on the table. What is the United States military going to do?

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:18Josh Clark?

  Now that two of its, um, two of its officers were murdered by acts by North Korean troops, totally unprovoked. This was 100% the North Koreans doing this. So much their fault that, like you said, it almost seems like it was possibly set up. We'll talk about that a little bit later. And so there was a big, a big question that needed to be answered and answered really fast. And that was, what, how are we gonna respond to this?

• 22:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, so on the US side at the time, we had Henry Kissinger as the Secretary of State under President Gerald Ford. Like we mentioned, it was 76, so it was the election year between Ford and Jimmy Carter. And Ford learned about the incident when he was at the Republican National Convention. And obviously, as Secretary of State, Kissinger was kind of in charge of figuring out what to do. Calls together the Washington Special Action Group, which was a task force that was formed in 69 out of Vietnam to deal with like sort of any emergencies like this that came up. And it's Henry Kissinger, so he's like, we should bomb the barracks. Like, he wants to flatten the barracks of the, the guards that attacked them

• 23:28Speaker 04

  and react really strongly and send a, you know, a big message that this will not stand.

• 23:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, I can kind of understand that impulse. He was apparently the only one in the special action group that wanted to respond with violent action. And the reason why was because this is such a flashpoint, still today, but at this time, I mean, it was like, we were still in the middle of the Cold War. So to us, not only was this North Korea, this is also China and the USSR right behind them, right?

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:01Josh Clark?

  So if you sent a missile into the JSA against the North Koreans, there was a better than even chance, probably, that you might spark a nuclear war, World War III.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:15Josh Clark?

  And luckily, cooler heads prevailed, but Kissinger had a, I think he was probably a little paranoid, I would guess. He was, he's very widely reviled, including by me. So I'm pretty sure he was at least a little paranoid. I mean, he started out in the Nixon administration, for goodness sake. But he was also, his, his position was also that this was a provocation by the North to test America's resolve because it was an election year. They were trying to interfere with the election to make the point of Gerald Ford's opponent, Jimmy Carter, who was saying, we need to get troops out of Korea. We don't have any business being there anymore. So Kissinger thought this is North Korea doing this to basically show that the Americans didn't belong here anymore and just to get out wasn't worth it, basically.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I get the idea, I mean, I was but five at the time, not super into politics yet. But I get the idea that, that getting American troops out of Korea was probably a pretty popular idea that Carter was laying out.

• 25:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, especially if they're Vietnam.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, and Kissinger was still ticked off about Vietnam. So he was like, if we don't do this, it's going to send a message that, to other Asian countries and the USSR and China, that we have no resolve and that we're going to stand down. And, you know, he wanted his guy Ford back in there, obviously. So he was outvoted, like he said, thankfully. But he was like, all right, we still need to show a force, like, we need to do something. And the one thing that everybody in the room agreed on, even if it was, I mean, I know it was somewhat strategical, but it was also symbolic. They were like, we're cutting that GD tree down. No matter what anyone else says, we're going to cut that thing down. And they were all like, haramph, haramph.

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  So yeah, they decided, okay, we're not going to actually destroy anything. We're not going to fire any missiles. We're not going to kill anybody. But that doesn't mean we're not going to show them that we could do that if we wanted to.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  And what they came up with was known as Operation Paul Bunyan, which is one of the better names of any operation I've ever heard.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. It was under command of General Richard Stillwell. He was the commander in chief of the UN Command there. And the message, like you said, was to sort of intimidate, show that we could do something if we wanted to. They had 40,000 troops over there that were, I mean, Dave says here it was raised to DEFCON 3, which is somewhat counterintuitive because it's raising a number even though it's being lowered, right?

• 26:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, right in the middle between one and five and one's the highest. It is very confusing.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you're raising DEFCON, but the number goes lower. It took me a second to figure that out, but I have seen War Games, so I know how it works. And I did just see that House of Dynamite. Have you seen that yet, the new Kathryn Bigelow movie?

• 27:04Josh Clark?

  No.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  It's, I think it's on, I think it's a Netflix movie about sort of a modern, you know, what would happen if nuclear arms were launched? Like, what would we do? So it's a very tense thing and there's lots of DEFCON talk. And I liked a lot of it.

• 27:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  I'll just say that.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  I can get that. I think she's directly funded by the CIA.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Kathryn Bigelow?

• 27:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  She definitely has her niche, you know?

• 27:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  I would recommend it. I didn't care for the third act that much, but.

• 27:38Josh Clark?

  House of Dynamite?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  I think that's what it's called.

• 27:40Josh Clark?

  It's a great name.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, you get Idris Elba as the president, so that's always a good move. I'll say that.

• 27:46Josh Clark?

  Wait, you're talking about that, he's in it with John Cena? John Cena's the American president? And Idris Elba's the prime minister? And they actually end up being like action heroes?

• 27:55Speaker 04

  No. Idris Elba's the American president. John Cena's, he's nowhere to be found.

• 28:00Josh Clark?

  I'm thinking of something else now.

• 28:01Speaker 04

  You're thinking of something else. Anyway, Operation Paul Bunyan is set up for, I mean, I know I'm saying Bunyan, but that's just because of my weird accent. It's Bunyan, August 21st. This is three days after the Axe attack. And what they were going to do was mobilize, sort of the largest mobilization of our forces and defenses in the Korean Peninsula since that 53 armistice, with some pretty heavy artillery and airships and sea ships.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, remember when Captain Bonifos went to escort the tree trimmers? There were 15 people. Now there's 800 men involved in this tree trimming. And it's not even a tree trimming at this point, right? They're now they're aiming to like, cut the tree down?

• 28:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, they hate this tree at this point. They want that tree dead.

• 28:50Josh Clark?

  Especially if they think that Dear Leader planted it, right? This tree has now become super symbolic. Blood has been shed to prune this tree. And you said that it's, there was a ton of artillery and armaments as part of the show of force. And boy, you got it right.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, they, they had flying overhead and clear view. So everyone could see, you know, what was going on. They had 20 Huey helicopters. They had 12 Cobra gunships, B-52 bombers, Tank Buster, F-4 Phantom fighter jets, F-111, strategic bombs. I mean, they're pulling out all the stops. And off the, off the coast, they had the USS, USS, did I say three S's or two? USS Midway, four frigates and a cruiser. And aircraft taking off, flying overhead. I mean, it was a real show of intimidation.

• 29:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, those B-52s that take the intimidation even further were flying inside North Korean airspace, not too far from Pyongyang. They were also strapped with nukes. There were nuclear missiles in this theater now. Not just the B-52s carrying them, but those F-111s were also carrying nuclear warheads as missiles. So the idea is here, as part of Operation Paul Bunyan, is to trim the tree or cut the tree down now. And to also show North Korea, like you do not want to mess with us. Do not ever do anything like that again. And to be prepared that if North Korea did do something, if they were provoked by this tree cutting down, that they would just be essentially wiped off the map as a nation.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. And you know, the whole, after I was studying all this, right in the middle of it, I got weirdly very sad for this tree.

• 30:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  This tree in the middle of all of it.

• 30:40Josh Clark?

  I've seen other people refer to as the poor tree.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  I know, because in the middle of all this stuff, I mean, these, you know, bombers are flying overhead and these troops are amassing, this heavy artillery on each side of the bridge. And I just picture that, you know, I know I'm anthropomorphizing. I always say that wrong. Say it for me.

• 30:58Josh Clark?

  Anthropomorphizing. You said it. You just said it's a little.

• 31:02Speaker 04

  That's right. This tree, but I just pictured this poor tree sitting there like, man, I just, I just want to be a tree.

• 31:09Josh Clark?

  I wish I were a shrub.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  I want to start World War III or be cut down.

• 31:13Josh Clark?

  I know. That tree did not get their wish.

• 31:17Speaker 04

  I'll grow slower, I promise.

• 31:19Josh Clark?

  Right. Here, I can just shed a few limbs.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  So Major General John Singlab, Dave helped us with this, found a quote that just showed how serious this was. And he said, "It was my estimate, shared by many of the staff, that the operation stood a 50/50 chance of starting a war." And that would have been World War III.

• 31:37Josh Clark?

  Absolutely. A nuclear war. This tree, tree cutting operation could have sparked World War III. No joke. Again, that is how tense things are at the DMZ, even still to this day.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  All right, should we take a break?

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's take a break. And then we're going to talk about Operation Paul Bunyan Commencing.

• 32:06Josh Clark?

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• 33:07Speaker 05

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• 34:14Speaker 05

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• 34:40Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, this is not a reckless thing. As a matter of fact, this was really calculated. You mentioned General Stilwell, who was in charge of every American troop in Korea. He personally came up with this plan. And he was not a warhawk, but he also, it was a really good plan, especially if all of the troops like followed orders and nobody tried anything provocative and nobody took any bait from the North Koreans. It was, it was a very good plan. But the United States was not reckless in this, in carrying out this plan. They actually got in touch with China and the USSR and basically, basically said, hey, you know, we're thinking about doing something like this. And China and the USSR both signaled that they were not going to do anything if North

• 35:24Josh Clark?

  Korea started fighting, that North Korea was on their own. I think they blinked twice and pulled their left earlobe and then touched the bill of their cap. And the United States is like, oh, we got you. So now it was a little less tense, even though it could still start a war with North Korea. At least we had this idea that China and the USSR wouldn't immediately intervene.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I immediately thought of Dr. Strangelove. And I could just hear Peter Sellers on the phone going, "Well, Dmitri, you see, there's this tree."

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  That's perfect.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  It's so great. I think we didn't mention too that the actual tree cutting was gonna be done by unarmed military engineers that they sent forward.

• 36:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  I mean, the fact that they weren't armed is kinda neither here nor there, because there were so many arms. I think the people actually on the bridge supposedly just had like these, you know, clubs and axe handles and sidearms, but both sides of the bridge were stocked with heavy artillery from both sides. And I also saw that the Korean, South Korean faction that was assisting us, they rolled in and blocked the bridge. And I don't think they were supposed to have anything more than just pistols.

• 36:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  But they unloaded a bunch of sandbags and had a bunch of M16s hidden that they took out.

• 36:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they also showed that they had claymore mines, landmines strapped to their chests, and they had the detonators in their other hand and were daring the North Koreans to come get them, because they would blow themselves up and the North Koreans. And this had not been passed by the UN Command Force or anything like that. No one had any idea that the South Korean Commandos were gonna do something like that, because again, we're trying to not let this be, you know, any more tense than it already is. And all of a sudden, there's essentially suicide bombers on the scenes like mocking the North Koreans. So that definitely altered things a little bit.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  Claymore with claymore.

• 37:21Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, I forgot that. I knew that from being a kid. Where'd you hear that? Is that just from the military and it trickled out?

• 37:28Speaker 04

  No, I thought it was The Simpsons, wasn't it?

• 37:31Josh Clark?

  No, I think it was like a, maybe in a Rambo or something. Like, there's no way I would have known that as a kid.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay. I can't remember where I heard it first, but at any rate, it's a very tense scene. I think we've set in that up. And again, you know, we had orders not to provoke, like, our mission is to cut that tree down, but all hell's gonna break loose if anything happens. And like you mentioned, North Korea had some pretty decent incentive to kinda start some fighting. They didn't want World War III, but they wanted to, you know, they wanted South Korea. Still at this point.

• 38:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus also Kim Il-sung, the dear leader, the first dear leader, he was a communist guerrilla fighting the Japanese in World War II. He was battle hardened and tested.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:18Josh Clark?

  So he was totally into fighting. He wasn't like a dove or a diplomat at all.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think we did mention too, that the previous tree trimming, supposedly we had told them that this was gonna happen. And so the whole provocation to begin with, if they knew about it ahead of time, then they came down there with that knowledge, because they didn't raise any objections, apparently. That we were like, hey, we're gonna trim this tree so we can have a better line of sight.

• 38:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  And you'll have a better line of sight. And no one said anything, you know, to the contrary. So the whole thing was really provocation by the North Koreans.

• 38:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, absolutely. That was the first time when Captain Bonifos and Lieutenant Barrett got murdered, right?

• 39:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Which, again, made it sort of seem like it was planned to begin with.

• 39:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. So at oh, 700 hours, that's 7:00 AM, on August 21st, 1976, Operation Paul Bunyan commences. And like you said, I mean, basically what we described, there was, there was an order not to engage. I mean, essentially, if the North Koreans started unloading with sniper fire or machine guns, then yes, we're going to engage. And it was a very tense operation, but they, they got in there, the military engineers, cut the tree, essentially down to a 10-foot stump. They were using, I read, Vietnam-era issue chainsaws that weren't in very good shape. So it took them a little while, but it took

• 39:49Josh Clark?

  them about 45 minutes to complete the whole thing. And

• 39:54Speaker 04

  They should have sent out Leatherface.

• 39:55Josh Clark?

  They should have.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  He could have gotten that done in 10 minutes.

• 39:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah. But they left this big stump with a two, like it was branching at the top. And one of the, the soldiers who was at the scene said that it had looked like somebody raising their arms in surrender, like the North Koreans were surrendering.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I saw that Kissinger tried to get a carving artist in there to shape it in the form of the middle finger.

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:22Josh Clark?

  Those guys are great, the chainsaw artists, man.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

• 40:27Josh Clark?

  I don't know if the intent was ever to cut down the entire tree. I don't think that that was the the plan, even in the second time, even in Operation Paul Bunyan. But they left this stump, the everybody on the US side just went back out. They just withdrew. The operation was successful, but things were still quite tense. It's not, it wasn't clear whether North Korea was going to respond still just because the operation was done. And now there weren't a bunch of troops. America or the UN Command, they just kept patrolling the joint security area like it was any other day. Because that's what it was supposed to be, even though this operation had commenced. It was now over, so things were supposed to go back to normal. But we still had no idea what North Korea was going to do.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  So, you know, pretext to this was they were very unapologetic about the whole incident leading up to that. Like after after Captain Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett were killed. But after Paul Bunyan, they they thankfully backed off. There wasn't like an expressed apology, but President Kim Il Sung did express regret for those deaths. So they clearly were sort of backing down at this point, you know, much to everyone's relief. And it was it was this incident that basically everyone's like, hey, you know what? Maybe this, maybe we didn't think this through how this thing operates with these guys all being here in the same place at all times.

• 41:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  And so it's set up much differently now. So you, the actual line that runs the length of the DMC is the actual dividing line even through the JSA.

• 42:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that dividing line, the military demarcation line, that is the actual border. As far as I understand, between North Korea and South Korea with the DMZ buffers on either side of it. And they just ignored it in the JSA, but then they started enforcing it. So now the North Korean troops and the UN Command troops do not intermingle, even though their posts are feet away from one another.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:27Josh Clark?

  It would be a really big deal for one to attack the other because you would be crossing the border now. There's no free.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  That's an invasion.

• 42:38Josh Clark?

  It would be an enormous deal. It'd be an international incident. And in fact, there was something like that in 1984. There was a Soviet exchange student who was on a tour with the North Koreans who ran across the border to defect into the West. And a firefight started that resulted in the deaths of three, three North Koreans and one UN Command South Korean soldier. And it was a huge, again, an international incident because some of the North Korean troops had run across the demarcation line to chase after the defector.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. So everyone is like, pretty happy and considered a success, except for Kissinger, of course. The North Koreans backed down really quickly, so it really didn't give him any chance during this election year to kind of tout some big victory of America. I mean, it was a victory, but I don't think it was like some huge international news thing. He wanted, he still wanted them to have blown up the barracks, or to taken out like a warship or two as like a big show of force. So everyone was pretty stoked, except for old Henry.

• 43:47Josh Clark?

  So they left that poplar tree there as a reminder, a monument of sorts, actually, until the 10th anniversary of the axe murder incident on August 18, 1986. They pulled the tree out, stump and all, roots and all, and replaced it with a memorial. And there's a plaque on it that reads, "On this spot was located the yellow poplar tree, which was the focal point of the axe murders of two United Nations Command Officers, Kepna Arthur Bonifos and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, who were attacked and killed by North Korean Guards while supervising a work party trimming the tree on 18 August 1976." And

• 44:27Josh Clark?

  it's, it's just so plainly put without any flowery language that it also just kind of gets across the horrible absurdity of the whole thing.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. And just a few years ago, in 2022, there was a sort of a joint show of. Not friendship, but like, maybe we should kind of literally put this to rest by planting a tree. I think the presidents of the two countries got together in the JSA to plant a pine tree of peace. And they took turn shoveling soil from each side, watered it with rivers from each side. And the pine tree of peace became, you know, and right now is sort of a big symbol of kind of what happened there and maybe let's try and just chill things out a little bit.

• 45:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, what made it even more significant was that the South Korean president Moon Jae-in was actually one of the South Korean commandos who took part in Operation Paul Bunyan.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  And then there's one other little note that I found pretty interesting. There's a one-hole par three, well, golf, I don't think you could call it a course, but it's, it's like an astroturf, well, a par three that's surrounded by landmines. Now where the poplar tree used to be and it's called the most dangerous hole in golf from Sports Illustrated.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we never really said, you know, we kind of hinted around that this might have been all planned to begin with. And there is circumstantial evidence that suggests that that whole attack was pre-planned to begin with.

• 46:01Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  You know, because I mentioned that we had gotten in touch with them and said, hey, we're going to prune this tree. And no one really said like, no, don't do that. And so that attack seemingly came out of nowhere, but one big clue was, I think, three minutes after this incident occurred, radio Pyongyang, which is the North Korean state radio, they broadcast a very biased report on this, like, right after it happened. So it seems pretty clear that it was pre-planned, but analysis later on seems to indicate that the Soviets did not know about it and they were kind of acting on their own.

• 46:36Josh Clark?

  No, I saw one other piece of circumstantial evidence, too, that kind of is pretty definitive is that within five hours, there was a non-aligned nation, which were the nations during the Cold War who didn't choose sides. All of them were meeting in Korea and within five hours, Korean delegates were at that meeting handing out memos describing this, the ax murders and totally blaming it on the Americans, like had completely flipped it around in an effort to kind of drum up support to get the Americans out. So that's, it does seem pretty likely that the North Koreans planned the ax murders.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, agreed.

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Uh, I got nothing else.

• 47:20Josh Clark?

  This is a good one, man. Hats off to the person or people who suggested it and maybe listen out for a future random episode where we thank you for it.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  I couldn't find it. I might have found this on my own.

• 47:32Josh Clark?

  I'll help you look.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  You know what? I think I was looking for live show topics and came across this.

• 47:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, cool. Yeah, this would have been a good one, but there's a lot of downers, too.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:43Josh Clark?

  Not a lot of jokey, ridiculous stuff.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:47Josh Clark?

  Do you have anything else?

• 47:49Speaker 04

  I do not.

• 47:50Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, that means it's time for listener man.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  I'm gonna call this "The Pain of Preemption" because that's what Michael called it. "Hey, guys. Love the Saturday morning cartoon episode. I was born in 84 and watched them well into high school. Your episode covered a lot, but you left out one thing: the pain of preemption. Local channels carried the big networks would often cut off the cartoons to show golf, baseball, or other sports. And as a kid, I know, I never knew when this is gonna happen. Just suddenly, the joy of cartoon was abruptly halted to show a golf match that no kid would care about. I never got to see the Christmas special, Christopher the Christmas Tree, or the last episode of Ultimate Muscle. I haven't heard of either one of those."

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  I haven't either, but I still feel for him.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  He said, "I don't want to bring down the room, but it's important to remember that those wonderful mornings could be broken at any time. Thanks for making such a great show." That is from Michael J. Crandall. And I forgot to mention, Michael, his initial salutation was, "Dear Mike and Josh."

• 48:51Josh Clark?

  Wow, he's got himself on the brain.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  I know.

• 48:55Josh Clark?

  Well, that was a great email, Michael, and thank you too, Mike, for reading it.

• 48:59Speaker 04

  Okay, I'll be Mike.

• 49:01Josh Clark?

  No, you're not Mike. You're Chuck. Everybody knows that.

• 49:03Speaker 04

  That's my brother's middle name, too, though, so that wouldn't fly.

• 49:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, is it?

• 49:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:06Josh Clark?

  Scott Mike?

• 49:08Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no, no. That's his first name. I forget. My brother and my sister, their middle name is their name, which is interesting. I'm not sure why that happened.

• 49:16Josh Clark?

  This has gotten so confusing to me.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  He's Michael Scott.

• 49:19Josh Clark?

  Is he really?

• 49:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:21Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. But why are you not calling him that all the time?

• 49:25Speaker 04

  I don't know. I probably should. I mean, that's the office guy, right?

• 49:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I never have thought about that until right now.

• 49:32Josh Clark?

  Well, that's what I'm going to call him from now on.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  All right.

• 49:35Josh Clark?

  Okay. If you want to be like Michael Crandall, not Michael Scott, and send us an email, we would love that. Please do. You can send it off to [email protected].

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 50:05Josh Clark?

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• 50:36Speaker 03

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