A picture made available on 09 September 2015 shows traditional mud men dancers from the Asaro District of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea perform for the official opening of the Pacific Islands Forum in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 08 September 2015. The Pacific Islands Forum goes from 07 to 11 September and discusses the regions vulnerability to Climate Change. (Photo by Mick Tsikas/EPA)

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)

Pakistani supporters of cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan and Canadian cleric Tahir ul Qadri beat a riot policeman during an anti-government protest in Islamabad on September 1, 2014. Hundreds of protesters trying to topple Pakistan's government briefly seized the state broadcaster on September 1, intensifying the political crisis gripping the nuclear-armed nation. Deadly clashes since the weekend have raised the spectre of military intervention which gained ground after one disillusioned opposition leader said the protesters were acting according to a plan devised by the army. (Photo by Aamir Qureshi/AFP Photo)

A member of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) deactivates a bomb from a supposed terrorist during a training exercise in the event of a terrorist attack in collaboration with Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion (RAID) and Research and Intervention Brigades (BRI) in presence of the French Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve at la Gare Montparnasse, in central Paris on April 20, 2016. (Photo by Miguel Medina/Reuters)

A taxi driver waits for passengers inside his taxi parked on the side of a deserted road during the first day of the two-day state-imposed lockdown as a preventive measure against the surge in COVID-19 coronavirus cases in Kolkata on August 20, 2020. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

A devotee throws a clay idol of Hindu elephant-headed deity Ganesh into the sea on the third day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, in Chennai on August 24, 2020. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

Nicki Minaj shows off to the crowd on top of a music truck during the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 26 February 2020. Minaj apologized on 26 February for her husband's behavior after a video showing Petty pushing a well-known local artist. The man had touched Minaj to allegedly encourage her in her performance. (Photo by Dexter Phillip via MoPho for London Entertainment/Splash News and Pictures)

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)