Participants take part in a high-heel race at a Gay Pride party in the central neighborhood of Chueca in Madrid on July 3, 2014. (Photo by Gerard Julien/AFP 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 child of a migrant worker drinks water as his mother holds him while waiting in a queue for transport to reach to a railway station to board a train to their home state of northern Uttar Pradesh, after a limited reopening of India's giant rail network following a nearly seven-week lockdown to slow the spreading of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ahmedabad, India, May 15, 2020. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Traders lay out their stools in a fishing village of Long Hai commune in Vung Tau province, Vietnam on June 17, 2020 with the market opening at midnight and trading into the early hours of the morning each day. It is the largest wholesale fishing market in the region and market traders can be seen sorting their fish into their different types before putting them into different coloured boxes for sale. (Photo by Pham Huy Trung/Solent News)

A landmark lion statue of a department store placed a protective mask is seen Wednesday, August 12, 2020, in Tokyo. The Japanese capital confirmed more than 200 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

A man is arrested by Police during clashes in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 25 January 2021. Police's mobile unit is present and has carried out charges to clear the street. Some arrests have also been made and a water cannon has been used. Nationwide protest against coronavirus restrictions and curfew imposed by Dutch government broke out during the weekend in many Dutch cities, leading to some violent riots and clashes with Police. (Photo by Marco de Swart/EPA/EFE)

In this image released on October 2, Bella Hadid is seen backstage during Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 presented by Amazon Prime Video at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California; and broadcast on October 2, 2020. (Photo by Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)

Revellers enjoy a night out in central Liverpool, northwest England, on December 30, 2020 before hightened Tier 3 restrictions closing hospitality venues, and bars indoor and outdoor socialising between households are imposed in the city amid surging cases of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP Photo)