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)

Macaque monkeys sit on a car in Hua Hin on May 29, 2020, as low tourist numbers due to the ongoing COVID-19 novel coronavirus situation have resulted in a decrease in the number of people feeding them. The monkeys in the town are going hungry as a consequence of the drop in tourism as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Jack Taylor/AFP Photo)

White horses of the Camargue thunder through the shallow salt flats at sunset on December 8, 2022. Known as Horses of the Sea, the breed native to the wetlands in southern France is one of the oldest in the world. (Photo by Nathalie Mountain/Media Drum Images)

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)

Friends (L-R) Katherine Olson, Olivia Carroll and Maron Ross take a memory during the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course on May 20, 2023. (Photo by Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

A bear that wandered into a University of Colorado Boulder dorm complex falls from a tree after being tranquilized by Colorado wildlife officials on April 26, 2012. Colorado wildlife official Jennifer Churchill said that the 200-pound male bear was tagged and relocated to a remote Rocky Mountain area. The bear was hit by two cars on May 3 and died. (Photo by Andy Duann)

A group of people wearing Santa Claus hats and swimming suits participate in the 13th charity Great Santa Claus Run in downtown Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, December 11, 2016. (Photo by Balazs Mohai/MTI via AP Photo)

A Ukrainian servicewoman fires a 2S7 Pion self-propelled gun at a position, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, on a frontline in Kherson region, Ukraine on November 9, 2022. (Photo by Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters)