Dutch supermodel Bregje Heinen sets pulses racing as she models for lingerie brand Frederick's of Hollywood on February 18, 2020. The 26-year-old beauty, a former Victoria's Secret model, strips off in a launderette as she showcases the company's spring 2020 collection. (Photo by Frederick's of Hollywood/The Mega Agency)

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 photo made avialable on 05 August 2015 shows an Indian woman collecting drinking water from a water pump in the submerged village of Sreerampur, some 150 kilometers north of Calcutta, India, on 04 August 2015. At least 215 people have died in floods and a landslide following monsoon rains in India over the past week, 83 deaths were reported from the western state of Gujarat and 69 from eastern West Bengal. The worst-affected states were West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan, the Home Ministry said. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA)

Then U.S. Army First Lieutenant Kirsten Griest (C) and fellow soldiers participate in combatives training during the Ranger Course on Fort Benning, Georgia, in this handout photograph taken on April 20, 2015 and obtained on August 20, 2015. When Griest and another woman completed the daunting U.S. Army Ranger school this week they helped end questions about whether women can serve as combat leaders, as the Pentagon is poised to open new roles, including elite Navy SEALs, to women in coming months. The feat by Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver followed a re-evaluation of the role of women after their frontline involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the end of a rule barring them from combat roles in 2013. (Photo by Spc. Nikayla Shodeen/Reuters/U.S. Army)

A model walks the runway during the Shona Joy “Le Long de la Côte” collection launch runway on September 21, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

A man wearing a costume of the StarWars protagonist Din Djarin poses in front of a giant replica of the Razor Crest, a gunship from the StarWars spinoff series “The Mandalorian” used by the hit TV show's mysterious bounty hunter to roam the galaxy's outer reaches, in a park of the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk on March 14, 2021. (Photo by Evgeniy Sofroneyev/AFP Photo)

A few revellers brave the cold and rain in Leeds, United Kingdom for the friday night out on December 30, 2022. Brits have kicked off their New Year’s Eve celebrations early with wild nights out up and down the country. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

Indian Air Force soldiers toss their rifles as they perform during the full-dress rehearsal for Indian Air Force Day at the Hindon air force station on the outskirts of New Delhi October 6, 2015. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)