The Time the US Sent 813 Soldiers to Cut Down One Tree

0:00 On August 21st, 1976, the United States

0:03 military, in conjunction with the South

0:04 Korean army, assembled one of the

0:06 biggest, most dramatic peacetime shows

0:08 of force in its history.

0:10 Fighter jets, helicopters, aircraft carrier battle

0:12 group, trucks, guns, 813 men, plenty

0:16 more on standby.

0:17 And for what?

0:18 What did this lethal fighting force do?

0:20 They cut down a tree.

0:22 To be more specific, a

0:23 poplar tree, a species that this

0:25 woodworking blog describes as, quote,

0:27 one of the softest hardwoods available.

0:30 So, why do you need a whole war machine

0:31 to cut it down?

0:32 Well, because, to put it

0:33 lightly, the earlier attempts to trim

0:35 the tree hadn't gone very smoothly.

0:37 This is the story of Operation Paul Bunyan,

0:40 one of the lesser discussed moments

0:42 where the Cold War almost got very hot.

0:44 And, as you could have assumed based on

0:46 the fact that you're watching Half as

0:47 Interesting, a thing that involved North

0:49 Korea.

0:50 Operation Paul Bunyan was a

0:51 direct response to what's known as the

0:53 Korean Axe Murder Incident, but to

0:55 understand either that incident or the

0:56 events that followed, we need to talk

0:58 about the DMZ, aka the buffer zone

1:00 between North and South Korea.

1:02 In 1953, just over 20 years before the axe

1:04 murders and the tree operation, the

1:06 North Korean army, the United States led

1:08 UN Command, and the Chinese People's

1:10 Volunteer Army signed an armistice that

1:12 formally ended the fighting of the

1:13 Korean War.

1:14 It also created the DMZ, or

1:15 demilitarized zone.

1:17 While North and South Korea had previously been divided

1:19 by a clean borderline right along the

1:21 38th parallel, the DMZ [music] was,

1:23 well, a zone.

1:24 About 2.5 miles, or 4

1:26 kilometers wide, not just dividing the

1:27 two countries, but giving them some much

1:29 needed space from each other.

1:31 The zone, demilitarized on the inside, is still

1:33 pretty fortified.

1:34 There's razor wire all

1:35 around the edges, and plenty of

1:37 minefields.

1:38 It's also always been pretty

1:39 tense.

1:39 Until 2018, both countries

1:41 blasted audio propaganda over the edge

1:43 of the zone and into the other country,

1:45 with North Korea playing messages about

1:46 how great they were, and how the South

1:48 was depraved, and South Korea playing,

1:50 among other things, K-pop.

1:51 Tell me, which one would you defect to?

1:54 But, not all the tension is saved for the edges.

1:56 Plenty of it happens right here, in the

1:58 Joint Security Area, or JSA.

2:01 It's a small village of sorts in the middle of

2:03 the DMZ, where there are offices and

2:05 troops from both the North and South

2:07 Korean armies, as well as US soldiers

2:09 with the UN Command.

2:10 And even here, in a

2:11 place that ostensibly exists to allow

2:13 peace talks, there's a military

2:14 demarcation line holding the two sides

2:16 back [music] from physically fighting

2:17 each other all the time.

2:19 That's not a joke.

2:20 Prior to the line, there were

2:22 countless incidents of JSA violence,

2:24 including people beating each other up,

2:25 breaking arms, kicking throats,

2:27 threatening with sticks.

2:28 You get the picture.

2:29 In fact, threats and violence

2:30 were so common in the JSA that there

2:31 were strict rules about what weapons

2:33 were even allowed inside.

2:34 An early deal in 1953 said each side could only have

2:37 one gun, and while that number has gone

2:39 up over the years, the number and type

2:41 of weapons allowed, and who's allowed to

2:43 carry them and when, has always been

2:45 strictly limited.

2:46 Hence, threatening with sticks.

2:48 Hence also, a US policy

2:49 [music] that all the soldiers we sent

2:50 there would be at least 6 feet tall.

2:52 Because, hey, if you can't carry the

2:54 gun, your next best weapon is the

2:55 confidence of a very tall American man.

2:58 It was a group of 10 such very tall

3:00 American men, along with five South

3:01 Korean men of unknown height, that went

3:03 to trim a 40-ft tall poplar tree within

3:05 the JSA on August 19th, 1973.

3:08 The tree was blocking the view between the UN

3:10 Command checkpoints, among other things,

3:12 and both of the team's prior attempts to

3:14 trim it had failed.

3:15 The first because the North Koreans didn't agree to the

3:17 trim, and the second because of rain.

3:19 The third time, despite seemingly having

3:21 approved the trim, about 15 North Korean

3:23 soldiers showed up and watched for about

3:24 15 minutes, then demanded they stop, in

3:26 part because they claimed Kim Il Sung

3:28 had planted the tree himself.

3:30 The team ignored them and kept going, then about

3:32 20 more North Korean soldiers showed up

3:33 with crowbars and clubs, and the

3:35 lieutenant leading them ordered them to

3:36 kill the tree cutters.

3:38 The attack and the ensuing fight were short, but awful.

3:41 Two of the Americans, including the one

3:42 leading the team, were brutally murdered

3:44 with their own tree trimming tools, and

3:46 many of the rest were badly injured.

3:48 Once everyone retreated, Kim Il Sung

3:50 tried to spin the story as an unprovoked

3:52 attack on the North Korean army, but

3:54 grainy film footage from nearby proved

3:56 otherwise.

3:57 President Ford knew he wanted

3:58 to retaliate, but it took a couple of

4:00 days for the administration to figure

4:01 out how.

4:02 Secretary of State Henry

4:03 Kissinger, obviously, was desperate to

4:05 draw blood, but Ford was like, "Hold

4:07 your horses, Kissy.

4:08 What can we do

4:08 [music] that's just short of a war?" And

4:11 so, Operation Paul Bunyan was born.

4:14 The idea was simple: cut down the tree.

4:17 But, do so in a way that, one, kept everyone

4:19 doing it safe from further attack, and

4:20 two, sent a loud and clear message to

4:22 Kim Il Sung that we're not messing

4:24 around over here.

4:25 So, along with sending

4:26 16 US engineers to cut down the tree,

4:28 defended by 60 South Korean special

4:30 forces guys bearing pistols and axe

4:31 handles, they also brought along some

4:33 AH-1 Cobra gunships, F-111 fighter

4:36 bombers, B-52 Stratofortresses from

4:38 Guam, dozens of F-4 Phantom II jets,

4:41 some of South Korea's F-5 and F-86 jets,

4:43 27 American helicopters, 23 [music]

4:46 trucks, some not so loud in the JSA

4:48 heavy weapons and Claymores hidden under

4:49 sandbags in the trucks, and a partridge

4:51 in a pear tree, which [music] they also

4:53 cut down.

4:54 In all, there were 813 guys on

4:56 the scene for this, even though only 235

4:59 US and South Korean troops were even

5:00 stationed in the JSA.

5:02 Here's how it played out.

5:03 At 7:00 a.m., the new,

5:04 larger ground team showed up to cut down

5:06 the tree, shortly met with hundreds of

5:08 North Korean troops who began to set up

5:10 machine guns.

5:10 Then, the commander of the

5:11 convoy queued all the jets and

5:13 helicopters to appear over the horizon,

5:14 and the properly spooked North Koreans

5:16 stood down, because, you know, what else

5:18 are you going to do?

5:19 About 40 minutes later, all that remained of the tree was

5:21 a 20-ft tall stump, and all the people

5:23 walked away unharmed.

5:24 Easy breezy.

5:25 But, the Americans and South Koreans

5:27 were prepared for it to go much worse.

5:29 One of the reasons it took 40 minutes

5:31 was that they opted for chainsaws over

5:33 heavier, more efficient tree cutting

5:34 equipment, because chainsaws are easier

5:36 to drop and run if things go sideways.

5:37 And at the ready if things went

5:38 sideways, an aircraft carrier battle

5:41 group off the coast, and all 41,000 US

5:44 troops in Korea, were to put at DEFCON

5:46 3, the same DEFCON they later used after

5:49 9/11.

5:50 They also rigged up nearby Camp

5:51 Liberty Bell, outside the JSA, with a

5:53 bunch of explosives, so if North [music]

5:55 Korea attacked or captured it, they

5:56 could blow the place to smithereens.

5:58 Luckily, it never came to any of that,

6:00 and Kim Il Sung released a rare for

6:02 North Korea statement of regret about

6:03 the axe murders.

6:04 The military demarcation line went down in the JSA to

6:07 tamp down continued hand-to-hand

6:08 hostility between the opposing sides,

6:10 [music] the poplar stump got replaced

6:11 with a memorial to the two axe murdered

6:13 soldiers, and the planet got to keep the

6:15 day since a World War ticker climbing

6:17 up.

6:17 So, if you hadn't heard of Operation

6:19 Paul Bunyan before today, be grateful,

6:21 because, while it's a YouTube fun fact

6:23 fodder in our universe, there's a

6:24 parallel one not so far from here where

6:26 it's Franz Ferdinand famous.

6:28 [music] And if you're not familiar with Franz

6:29 Ferdinand, you are really not going to

6:31 like what happened to him.

6:33 Now, before we go, if you're into very

6:35 elaborate approaches to seemingly

6:36 trivial tasks, you may want to check out

6:38 our new docu-series, Scav.

6:40 Earlier this year, our whole team headed to the

6:42 University of Chicago to film their

6:44 annual scavenger hunt, which is sort of

6:46 like a normal scavenger hunt, except

6:47 with helicopters, popes, whatever this

6:49 is, and a guy named Danger who threw

6:51 knives at my writer Amy's head, which

6:53 usually only I'm allowed to do.

6:54 We're so, so proud of Scav.

6:56 And the good news

6:56 is, you can watch the entire season

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7:47 See you there.