Participants climb over a wall at the “Tough Mudder” endurance event series in Arnsberg September 6, 2014. Competitors who took part in the endurance event saw themselves having to overcome various military style obstacles. (Photo by Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

A drag performer named Reagan Holiday competes in a drag queen competition called MR(S) BK in the Brooklyn borough in New York City, U.S. on March 10, 2018. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters)

Sarah Bui poses for photographer, Brian Le around blossoming cherry trees, near the Tidal Basin on Thursday March 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

A model presents a creation from the Versace Fall-Winter 2022/2023 collection during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 25, 2022. (Photo by Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters)

Photographer and editor with Reuters for 22 years, Andrew Winning has died of brain cancer at the age of 49. Here: Elite special police run for cover after gunfire was heard from inside the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, January 27, 1997. At the moment the shots were fired, police were parading past the residence in a show of force, and helicopters were flying above. Earlier, several armored personnel carriers rolled past the compound. Tupac Amaru rebels had seized the diplomatic compound December 17 and held 72 hostages. (Photo by Andrew Winning/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)

A Lion-Tailed macaque holds a big block of ice with a mix of frozen vegetables and fruit at the zoo in Leipzig, central Germany, Friday, July 19, 2013. Weather forecasts predict sunny weather and warm temperatures for Germany in the next few days. (Photo by Jens Meyer/AP Photo)

A three-month-old Sumatran tiger cub named “Bandar” shows his displeasure after being dunked in the tiger exhibit moat for a swim reliability test at the National Zoo in Washington, on November 6, 2013. All cubs born at the zoo must take a swim test before being allowed to roam in the exhibit. Bandar passed his test. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)