An environmental activist performs during a protest in front of the headquarters of Brazilian mining company Vale SA in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 16, 2015. The collapse of two dams at a Brazilian mine, owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd, has cut off drinking water for quarter of a million people and saturated waterways downstream with dense orange sediment that could wreck the ecosystem for years to come. Nine people were killed, 19 are still listed as missing and 500 people were displaced from their homes when the dams burst at an iron ore mine in southeastern Brazil on November 5. (Photo by Sergio Moraes/Reuters)

A 20 metre high spiral staircase in a tower used as an emergency exit, is seen inside a Federal Reserve bank (Bundesbank) bunker, prior to the bunker's official opening to the public in Cochem, Germany, March 18, 2016. West Germany's Central Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank) stored some 20 billion German marks of emergency notes in two underground bunkers, one in Frankfurt the other in Cochem, between 1964-1988 during the cold war. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

A newborn baby pangolin climbs the walls of a cage in Bangkok, Thailand April 20, 2011. The Thai custom office showed 175 pangolins they found hidden in a truck heading into Bangkok. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

An Indian woman dressed in traditional attire rides a motorcycle as she participates in a procession to mark Gudi Padwa or the Marathi New Year in Mumbai, Maharashtra state, India, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

The first jaguar litter since 1975 was born at the Milwaukee County Zoo to Stella and Pat on November 13, 2013. The litter was on public display for the first time on March 13 when the jaguar baby's names were released. Belize schoolchildren named one Zean, which is the end of Belizean, and a public contest named the other B'alam, which means "great and powerful king" in Mayan. Photo: Stella the mother and her cub Zean rest together at The Milwaukee County Zoo. (Photo by Rick Wood)

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)

Marani Devi Chaudhary (C), aged 40, performs a ritual in front of shaman Paltan Yadav (unseen) at her home in Rajaur village in Dhanusha district, Nepal, 02 November 2017. The shaman identified Marani Devi to be possessed by their lineage god who was dissatisfied by their worship is thought by the family to have caused them misfortune and is even feared lead to their death. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA/EFE)

Aerial view of the “Viracocha III”, a boat made only from the totora reed, as it is being prepared to cross the Pacific from Chile to Australia on an expected six-month journey, La Paz, Bolivia, October 19, 2016. An expedition in a boat made only of reeds crafted by indigenous Bolivians is getting ready to cross the Pacific from South America to Australia, in a fresh attempt to prove that ancient mariners were capable of making the journey. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)