Ratko Mladic makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands. Ex-Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic will make his first appearance at The Hague war crimes tribunal after being declared fit to stand trial. Mladic was arrested a week ago after going into hiding for the past 16 years and is charged with atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. (Photo Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images )

In the spring of 1965, within weeks of 3,500 American Marines arriving in Vietnam, a 39-year-old Briton named Larry Burrows began work on a feature for LIFE magazine, chronicling the day-to-day experience of U.S. troops on the ground – and in the air – in the midst of the rapidly widening war. The photographs in this gallery focus on a calamitous March 31, 1965, helicopter mission; Burrows’ “report from Da Nang”, featuring his pictures and his personal account of the harrowing operation, was published two weeks later as a now-famous cover story in the April 16, 1965, issue of LIFE.

Photo: Man your battle stations: The crew chief of helicopter Yankee Papa 13, lance corporal James C. Farley, mans an M-60 machine gun during a mission near Da Nang, Vietnam on March 31, 1965. (Photo by Larry Burrows/Time & Life Pictures)

A woman passes Members of historical clubs dressed in the uniform of French soldiers during ceremony of repatriation of the remains of French General Charles-Etienne Gudin de la Sablonniere, participant in the French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars, to France in Moscow airport Vnukovo-3, Russia, 13 July 2021. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

A participant in the Borodino Battle re-enactment before the show at the Borodino Field in the Moscow Region on September 4, 2016. The Battle of Borodino, fought on September 7, 1812, was a battle fought in the Napoleonic Wars during the French invasion of Russia. The fighting involved around 250,000 troops and left at least 70,000 casualties, making Borodino the deadliest day of the Napoleonic Wars. (Photo by Kirill Kallinikov/Sputnik)

Performers wearing 19th century French military uniforms fire their weapons as they attack Allied forces during a reenactment of the Battle of the Nations, in a field in the village of Markkleeberg near Leipzig October 20, 2013. The east German city of Leipzig commemorated the 200th anniversary of the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars on Sunday by reenacting the Battle of the Nations, with 6,000 military-historic association enthusiasts from all over Europe. The decisive encounter in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed, took place from October 17-19, 1813, just outside of Leipzig. At the height of the hostilities Napoleon fielded more than 200,000 men against an Allied force of some 360,000 soldiers which included troops from Russia, Austria, Prussia and Sweden. (Photo by Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

“The Spanish Civil War (The Crusade among Nationalists, Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans) was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. An estimated total of 500,000 people lost their lives as a consequence of the War”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Actors take part in a re-enactment of the “Battle of Areces” that took place during the Spanish Civil War, in Grullos, north of Spain, September 14, 2013. The re-enactment of the historic 1937 battle was organised by the Frente del Nalon Association. (Photo by Eloy Alonso/Reuters)

An Iraqi woman and foreigners use pair of compact discs as a filter to watch the partial solar eclipse in war-torn Baghdad, 29 March 2006. Without access to proper equipment to protect their eyes from the sun's rays, eclipse watchers in Iraq used makeshift filters. The moon blotted out the sun over northwest Africa early Wednesday, turning day into night in a total solar eclipse as it swept a shadowy path from the outer tip of Brazil to the steppes of Mongolia. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AFP Photo)

Originally known to the First Nations of the Okanagan Valley as Khiluk, which was- and remains today revered as a sacred site producing therapeutic waters. During World War I the minerals of Spotted Lake were used in manufacturing ammunition. Later the area came under the control of the Ernest Smith Family, for a term of about 40 years. In 1979 Smith attempted to create interest in a spa at the lake. The First Nations responded with an effort to buy the lake; in October 2001 they finally struck a deal. First Nations arranged the purchase of 22 hectares of land for a total of $720,000, and contributed about 20% of the cost. The Indian Affairs Department paid the remainder.