6 Oddly Named U.S. Government Operations

Operation Paul Bunyan—also known as that time the U.S. military deployed helicopters to cut down a tree—commenced in 1976 after the murders of two U.S. Army officers. Arthur Bonifas and Mark Barrett were hacked to death with their own axes by two North Korean officers in the Korean demilitarized zone after their team attempted to chop down a tree that obstructed the view of United Nations observers. The North Korean soldiers insisted that the tree had been planted by their president, Kim Il-Sung, and used this as their defense for attacking the soldiers. In retaliation, the U.S. initiated Operation Paul Bunyan, which was intended to intimidate North Korea as well as, of course, cut down that darn tree. They arrived in the demilitarized zone three days after the killings with over a dozen men equipped with chain saws, 60 with pistols and hand axes, 64 Tae Kwon Do trained South Korean Special Forces, 20 utility helicopters, 7 Cobra attack helicopters, and more—totaling over 800 men. The North Koreans responded with troops of their own, but after about 45 minutes the tree finally fell.

Shaken, not purred—Operation Acoustic Kitty aimed to create the first ever spy cat in the 1960s. The kitty was equipped with a microphone implanted in its ear canal as well as a radio transmitter beneath its skull and a wire through its skin. The first mission involved eavesdropping on two Soviet men outside the Soviet compound in Washington, D.C. There is speculation about what happened next: some say the poor cat was killed by a taxi moments after being released for his mission; others say the experiment was simply abandoned before the mission even occurred. Either way, Acoustic Kitty cost nearly $20 million and didn’t result in any functioning spy cats.

Operation Breakfast, despite its name, was not an attempt to find the best ever pancake house. In 1969 U.S. President Richard Nixon and the Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombed a series of bases in eastern Cambodia under the umbrella name of Operation Menu. The targets were bases under the control of the Viet Cong and the People’s Army of Vietnam. Operation Breakfast was the first of these attacks. It dropped 2,400 tons of bombs on Base Area 353 and was immensely successful for the U.S.—so much so that five more Operation Menu missions were undertaken: Operations Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Supper, and Dessert followed.

Composer Glenn Miller probably didn’t have an Allied air offensive in mind when he wrote the song “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” but in 1944 that’s exactly what occurred under the same name. The goal of the offensive was to limit Germany’s access to locomotives that could be used as a transportation method for reinforcements to northwest France. British and U.S. fighter planes targeted railways in the western portion of German-occupied France. It was extremely successful, drastically decreasing railroad operations and, in turn, the speed of reinforcements.

No, this wasn’t the solution to a mass staple deficiency. Rather, it was the United States’ recruitment of some 1,600 German scientists following World War II, many of whom had belonged to the Nazi Party. The motive behind the recruitment was the United States’ desire to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and in the Space Race. The Soviet Union, however, was doing the same as the U.S.—only a bit less nicely. In one night alone they forcibly recruited over 2,000 German specialists.

Operation Toenails occurred in 1943 and, surprisingly, had absolutely nothing to do with feet. The operation aimed for U.S. seizure of a main island of the New Georgia Islands in the Pacific. During World War II Japan had formed numerous bases on the island of New Georgia, and Operation Toenails set out to destroy those bases and to secure the island. The main base in question during Operation Toenails was the Japanese airfield at Munda Point. It was a tough fight in difficult terrain, but the American soldiers eventually got past enemy lines and secured the base. That win earned them valuable experience that would influence the rest of the battle and their eventual victory in the Pacific theater.