An authenticated contemporary copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa on display at the Prado Museum on February 1, 2012 in Madrid, Spain. Experts of the Prado Museum say the copy was painted at the same time as the Mona Lisa in Leonardo Da Vinci's studio by one of his students.

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 crew members walks on the flight deck past Super Etendard fighter jets aboard France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on missino in the Gulf, January 29, 2016. (Photo by Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)

French artist Olivier Grossetête used three enormous helium balloons to float a rope bridge over a lake in Tatton Park, a historic estate in north-west England.

Fan Bingbing attends the new High Jewellery Collection “Sortilege de Cartier” launch dinner at Villa Aurelia on September 17, 2011 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images for Cartier)