A salsa dancer performs in the “Salsodromo” parade, which marks the start of the Fair of Cali, Colombia, December 25, 2015. Picture taken December 25, 2015. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters)

A policeman aims his weapon in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016. Members of Turkey's armed forces said they had taken control of the country Friday as explosions, gunfire and a reported air battle between loyalist forces and coup supporters erupted in the capital. President Erdogan remained defiant and called on people to take to the streets to show support for his embattled government. (Photo by Kemal Aslan/Reuters)

Police personnel march during the Republic Day Parade in Amritsar on January 26, 2021. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

Scenes from the popular Walking Street normally packed with tourists filled with bars and restaurants in Pattaya, Thailand on March 10, 2020. Thailand depends on tourism, currently tourist arrivals have plunged more than 50% and are expected to continue for months ahead. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Thailand there has been 59 confirmed cases of Coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) with 6 new, only one death with around 1,903 persons under treatment. Latest information on the Novel Coronavirus has infected more than 118,000 people and killed close to 4,300. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Police and the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) servicemen patrol Red Square in front of the Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin in Moscow on October 24, 2022, as part of security reinforcement measures. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)

A Santa hangs down the facade of the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, with the help of the Charity Firemen of Barcelona, as he visits children admitted to the medical center, in Barcelona, Spain, 19 December 2022. (Photo by Alejandro Garcia/EPA/EFE)

An Indigenous woman smokes during a protest demanding a better health care system be made available in her region, including the hiring of more doctors and nurses as well as the building of more clinics, outside the Ministry of Health in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, February 8, 2023. (Photo by Gustavo Moreno/AP Photo)

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)