Fans dressed up in costume await the cast members on the red carpet at the world premiere of the film "The Avengers: Endgame" in Los Angeles, California, April 22, 2019. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

A man reacts as health workers help collect a nasal swab sample to test for COVID-19 in Hyderabad, India, Thursday, September 17, 2020. As India’s coronavirus confirmed cases jump by a record 97,894 cases in the past 24 hours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government faced a scathing opposition criticism in Parliament for its handling of the pandemic and a contracting economy leaving millions jobless on Thursday. (Photo by Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo)

In a photo taken on November 4, 2020 visitors wearing traditional Korean hanbok dress walk beneath yellow ginko leaves in a courtyard at Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Mother and daughter volunteers Niki, right, and Rachel practice their pancake tossing technique in the streets of Wimborne model town and gardens before taking part in the Wimborne Minster virtual pancake race, in Wimborne, England, Tuesday February 16, 2021. Although a physical race cannot take place this year due to the coronavirus restrictions, Wimborne Minster has invited people to film themselves tossing a pancake for 30 seconds and posting it to Facebook. (Photo by Andrew Matthews/PA Wire via AP 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)

Children play in the Crown Fountain at Millennium Park in Chicago, Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (Photo by Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo)

Kindergartner Cameron McManus, 5, watches as a fellow student has his portrait made during “picture day” at Rogers International School on September 23, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. Students lined up outside to be photographed while socially distanced due to COVID-19 precautions. Most students at Stamford Public Schools are taking part in a hybrid education model, attending in-school classes every other day and distance learning the rest. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Police officers look on as protesters block the road with burning tyres and wood, during a mass protest the morning after preliminary results were released for five communes in Conakry on October 21, 2020. African monitors said on October 20, 2020, that Guinea's weekend election was conducted properly, but the political opposition to incumbent Alpha Conde, which has already claimed victory, dismissed it as fraudulent. (Photo by John Wessels/AFP Photo)