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For the past 48 years, Panmunjom, but more specifically the Joint Security Area (JSA) it contains, has often been the center of international attention. As the symbolic meeting and exchange point between a divided North and South Korea, it has been the site of military armistice meetings and the repatriation of remains of service members. The JSA has also been a conduit for humanitarian aid, the place of the most recent repatriation of a North Korean soldier who had crossed into the South unintentionally and the basis for a hit movie, "JSA."
However, over the years Panmunjom and the JSA has also been the site of various incidents and confrontations between guards in the area that have resulted in the loss of life. Of these, the incident known as "The Panmunjom Axe Murder" is one of the more infamous incidents that have occurred there.
It was in the JSA, near the "Bridge of No Return" on Aug. 18, 1976, that two U.S. soldiers - part of a work detail to trim the branches of a poplar tree that obscured a United Nations Command (UNC) checkpoint - were brutally slain by ax-wielding North Korean guards. Three days later, in what has been called the most expensive tree-cutting operation ever, Operation Paul Bunyan commenced. With U.S. forces here on alert, as well as F-111 I Is from the States, F-4s from Okinawa, B-52s on alert and the USS Midway in an operational area in the southern straits of South Korea, a task force went back into the JSA and cut down the tree.
Originally published in 1980, Wayne Kirkbride's book on the Panmunjom Axe Murder incident and Operation Paul Bunyan has been the only account of what happened on that fateful day and the subsequent tree-cutting operation. Kirkbride provides genuine insights into both events with this highly informative narrative. Moreover, Kirkbride gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the planning that went into the tree-cutting operation, as well...