A person dressed as the Krampus performs during the 9th Krampus meeting show in Serfaus, Tyrol, Austria, 12 November 2016. Several thousand people watched the parade of about 27 artists groups from Austria and South Tyrol, Italy. The Krampus is a folklorical figure who, during the Christmas season, punishes children who have misbehaved. (Photo by Christian Bruna/EPA)

A suspected street robber is arrested by a policeman after a brief chase in the streets, June 20, 2016, in Manila, Philippines. The president-elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, declared a war on crime and drugs after sweeping an election on May 9 and has been living up to his nickname, “the punisher”. Philippine police have been conducting night raids almost on a daily basis and revived a curfew for minors that had not been enforced for years, rounding up minors drinking on the streets. (Photo by Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images)

An Acehnese women is whipped in front of the public for violating sharia law in Pidie District on 14 July 2017, Aceh, Indonesia. Aceh is the only one province in Indonesia which has implemented sharia law, which bans sexual contact between men and women who are not married. Whipping is one form of punishment imposed in Aceh for violating Islamic sharia law. (Photo by Oviyandi/Barcroft Images)

A member of Korean Federation for Environmental Movement in a Santa Claus outfit attaches dumped cigarette butts at a cigarette butt Christmas tree in front of Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corporation office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, December 23, 2019. The environmental activist group called for a ban on the use of plastic for cigarette filters as part of efforts to protect the environment from toxic plastic pollution. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

A young couple rest in a football field after a forest fire devastated Santa Olga, 240 kilometres south of Santiago, on January 26, 2017. Six people – among them four firefighters and two police – have now been killed battling vast forest fires in central Chile, officials said Wednesday. Multiple blazes have ravaged 238,000 hectares (588,000 acres) and are growing, the National Forestry Corporation said in a statement. (Photo by Pablo Vera Lisperguer/AFP Photo)

Police Cpl. Cristiano de Oliveira offers a hand to police dog “Corporal Oliveira”, at the 17 Military Police Battalion's station, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, April 7, 2022. Oliveira is one of two rescue dogs that have turned into local mascots and budding online influencers after joining their rescuers' ranks. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/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)