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)

TV personality Lindsay Hubbard got “activated” at the Straight Talk Tax Breaks event in Miami on February 24, 2024. (Photo by Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com)

Li Guoqiang talks on his phone outside his house at Guangfuli neighbourhood, in Shanghai, China, April 1, 2016. Li, 38, is a deliveryman who rents a place at Guangfuli. In a corner of Shanghai, surrounded by a cement wall, lies one of the world's most valuable fields of debris and garbage. On paper, the Guangfuli neighbourhood is a real estate investor's dream: a plot in the middle of one of the world's most expensive and fast-rising property markets. But the reality is more like a developer's nightmare, thanks to hundreds of people living there who have refused to budge from their ramshackle homes for nearly 16 years as the local authority sought to clear the land for new construction. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

A mass pillow fight in Trafalgar Square in central London on April 5, 2014 on International Pillow Fight Day. (Photo by Jane Scanlan)

Dublin Horse Show mascot “Conor the Capall” among the crowds on the opening day of the 147th Dublin Horse Show at the RDS on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, the first to be held since 2019. The event which was first held in 1864 takes place over the next five days and includes national and international show jumping competitions. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)

The iconic Otley Run starts at Woodies pub in Far Headingly and finishes at The Dry Dock at the edge of Leeds, UK city centre on August 24, 2025. Hundreds of rowdy drinkers take to the streets this weekend. (Photo by NB Press LTD)

India's Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers ride their camels during a rehearsal for the “Beating the Retreat” ceremony in New Delhi, India, January 27, 2016. The ceremony symbolises retreat after a day on the battlefield, and marks the official end of the Indian Republic Day celebrations. It is held every year on January 29. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

Hindu devotees laugh as they watch the religious festival of Lathmar Holi, where women beat the men with sticks, in the town of Barsana in the Uttar Pradesh region of India, March 17, 2016. During Lathmar Holi the women of Barsana beat the men from Nandgaon, the hometown of Krishna, with wooden sticks in response to their teasing. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)