Actor Brad Pitt films a scene from “World War Z” in Glasgow City centre on August 18, 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland. The film, which is set in Philadelphia, will be shot in various parts of the city transforming it into ruins to shoot a post apocalyptic zombie film. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

“Eyes Wide Open is an exhibit created by the American Friends Service Committee observing the American soldiers and marines that have died in the Iraq War. It contains a pair of combat boots to represent every American soldier and marine that has died in the war, as well as shoes representing Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives during the invasion and occupation”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A man pauses as he looks at rows of combat boots that are part of the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in front of San Francisco City Hall on March 19, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The Eyes Wide Open exhibition includes a pair of boots for every one of the 481 California servicemen and women who died in the Iraq war. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Characters from Star Wars pose for a photocall to promote the release of Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace 3D at The London Eye on February 8, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images)

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)

World War II reenactors gather ahead of the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy region, France, on June 2, 2024. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Wolfgang (L), member of World War One historical association “Darstellungsgruppe Suddeutsches Militar 1870-1918” (DSM 18), from Munich, Germany, and Florent, member of French association “Le Poilu de la Marne”, dressed in vintage army uniforms, visit the Bezonvaux bunker in the national forest of Verdun, eastern France, March 29, 2014. Members of French and German historical associations, who gather annually, together visited the battlefield of Verdun in France, the site of a bloody World War One battle that dragged on for around 10 months in 1916, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and destroying many villages. (Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters)

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)