Shortlisted: The Life: A narrow strip, Río Tinto, Huelva, Spain. A narrow strip of road divides ochre-coloured and fresh waters. Trees wait on the fresh side of the road opposite the toxic waters of a nearby mine reservoir. (Photo by Roberto Bueno/CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021)

A young male fiddler crab is dwarfed by an older male of the same species, looming behind it at Morua estuary, in the Gulf of California, Mexico on January 4, 2022. Whereas female fiddler crabs have small claws of equal sizes, the males’ pincers can vary in size, with the small one used to pick up food and the larger to impress females. (Photo by Claudio Contreras/Solent News)

A woman cuts her hair during a protest against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini and the government of Iran on October 02, 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Aerialist Erin Blaire, 33, performs a hair hanging trick for a photographer while hanging from a metal bar on a subway platform on March 14, 2023 in New York City. Erin Blaire, originally from Vermont, has lived in New York City for eight years and has been performing her aerial hair routine for the last three. The origin of hair hanging is believed to have originated in China, according to reports, and is a closely guarded circus trick passed from mentor to mentee. Although it is possible to find the technique and secrets online it is most-likely not how professional performers learned the skillset, and not how Blaire did either. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Artist and photographer Spencer Tunick, right, walks past models covering themselves with large leaves, as he talks about his next project at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Thursday, November 24, 2022. Tuncik is expecting to photograph thousands of nude people on Bondi Beach on Saturday. (Photo by Rick Rycroft/AP Photo)

A clown nose is placed on a child's face during a protest opposing violence against women after the murder of Venezuelan actress and clown Julieta Inés Hernández Martínez in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, January 8, 2024. The body of Hern·ndez, who had been missing since Dec. 23 while traveling by bicycle, was found in Presidente Figueiredo city, near Manaus in Amazonas state. (Photo by Bruna Prado/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)

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)