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.