Four hundred buyers from around the world join 260 diamond manufacturing and trading firms on International Diamond Week as some 1,500 people are expected to trade more than billion of polished diamonds this week in Ramat Gan, Israel on February 16, 2016. The Israel Diamond Exchange is considered the most secure in the world, covering an area of 100,000 square meters with 3,500 bourse members. (Photo by Nir Alon via ZUMA Wire)

Elfyn Evans of Great Britain and Daniel Barritt of Great Britain compete in their M-Sport WRT Ford Fiesta RS WRC during Day One of the WRC Australia on September 11, 2015 in Coffs Harbour, Australia. (Photo by Massimo Bettiol/Getty Images)

People dance Tuesday, April 28, 2015, in Baltimore. Maryland's governor vowed there would be no repeat of the looting, arson and vandalism that erupted Monday in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. (Photo by Matt Rourke/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)

Base jumpers leap from the 300-metre high skydeck of Malaysia's landmark Kuala Lumpur Tower against the backdrop of the city's skyline on October 3, 2016 during the annual International KL Tower Base-Jump event. (Photo by Manan Vatsyayana/AFP Photo)

Fatima Rezai, 21, a female officer from the Afghan National Army (ANA) practices with a punch bag during an exercise session at at the Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC) in Kabul, Afghanistan October 23, 2016. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)