Brooks Nader and her sisters, Mary Holland, Grace Ann, and Sarah Jane announce Season 2 of “Love Thy Nader” with a photoshoot in Los Angeles on November 24, 2025. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

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)

A glasses-free Toshiba 55-inch 3-D 4x full HD TV shows the movie, “Coraline” at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 11, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The TVs are scheduled to be available this year and will come with embedded cameras with facial recognition capability so depending on where you are sitting, the set will adjust the viewing point for the best 3-D experience. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Lilly Caron, 8, of Bridgeton, Maine, Jason Homchick, of San Diego, and Lilly's father Jason Caron, (obscured), ride the Sky Swing at Seacoast Adventure, Thursday, July 14, 2016, in Wyndham, Maine. The 100-foot-tall swing gives riders the combined thrills of sky diving and hang gliding. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

“I started photography in June 2009. At the time, I was searching for a way to express both the rigorous scientist and the creative artist in me. There are few hobbies that let these two approaches work together, so I really was enthusiastic about it: I am now spending all my free time studying various techniques, contemplating others' fantastic work, and of course, making pictures”. – Christophe Kiciak. Photo: “The Hero”. (Photo by Christophe Kiciak)

Seven month old Christine Joy shares her pram with two 5 week old Gunsure Golden Cherry's cocker spaniel pups from Gunsure Kennels in Ashford, Middlesex. 22nd May 1953. (Photo by Fred Morley/Fox Photos)

Sally Fitzgibbons of Australia competes in the Women's Final of the 2012 Australian Surfing Open on February 19, 2012 in Manly, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Women walk next to soldiers in Surcubamba, Peru, Thursday, May 21, 2015. The Joint Command of the Peruvian Armed Forces organized a humanitarian mission to Surcubamba, where health care was provided to families from nearby villages in this region called VRAEM, the acronym for Valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro rivers, where sixty percent of Peru's cocaine originates. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)