A Snowboarder participates in a waterslide contest, which consists of gliding over a water pool embedded in snow, during the closing event of the ski resort of Nendaz, southwestern Switzerland, Monday, April 21, 2014. (Photo by Maxime Schmid/AP Photo/Keystone)

A performer wearing costumes walk on stilts before a show during a lantern fair at the beginning of Chinese Lunar New Year, in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, February 11, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Caoimhe Cooburn-Gray poses for a picture on St. Patrick's day in Dublin, Ireland March 17, 2016. Saint Patrick's Day is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, céilithe, and the wearing of shamrocks, as well as green or orange attire. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

Juanita Robinson (L) from Ohio and Trenaya Blackburn pose as Quan White from Michigan takes their picture as they vacation on South Beach on May 16, 2016 in Miami Beach, Florida. The Florida government announced it broke a tourism record in the first quarter of this year, attracting 29.8 million tourists, an increase of 4.8 percent over the same time frame in 2015. (Photo by Joe Raedle/AFP Photo)

Young men play basketball on an improvised court wedged between a construction site and the shells of once grand colonial homes in Havana, July 20, 2015. As much as the young in Cuba welcome political opening and economic reform, such changes are unlikely to filter down to their lives anytime soon. (Photo by Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)

Indian Air Force soldiers toss their rifles as they perform during the full-dress rehearsal for Indian Air Force Day at the Hindon air force station on the outskirts of New Delhi October 6, 2015. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

Soldiers pose for a photo during the flower exhibition marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea April 16, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

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)