A large Pacific sideband snail slowly crosses a rain wet road in rural Douglas County, Oregon near Elkton on Sunday, December 2, 2012. The moisture loving snail should be very content with the recent heavy rains in southwestern Oregon and northern California. (Photo by Robin Loznak)

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)

Soniya, 6, whose family moved to Islamabad from Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to look for work, stands outside their house on the outskirts of Islamabad January 1, 2015. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Gypsies gather at Appleby in Cumbria, United Kingdom on August 12, 2021, for the biggest horse fair of its kind in Europe, which lasts till Sunday. Typically the fair takes place in June, although COVID has pushed it back to August in 2021. In the region of 30,000 people are expected to attend. (Photo by Chris Strickland/Alamy Live News)

Plebes form a human pyramid to place an upperclassman hat atop the 21-foot vegetable shortening-covered Herndon Monument, a tradition marking the end of their plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., May 23, 2022. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Volunteers distribute water to a woman carrying a child along a street during a hot summer day in Karachi on May 14, 2022. (Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP Photo)

Oakland Athletics left fielder Tony Kemp (5) catches the ball during the first inning against the Miami Marlins at RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, California on August 22, 2022. (Photo by Stan Szeto/USA TODAY Sports)

A person looks out at Midtown Manhattan in the haze from the Top of the Rock NYC Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center on June 7, 2023. Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has engulfed the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US, raising concerns over the harms of persistent poor air quality. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)