The $250,000 Beverly Hills Chopper socialite Paris Hilton is to receive is displayed at Johnny Fratto's residence November 14, 2005 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)

Workers carry sacks of tea leaves at a tea estate in Nagaon district in the northeastern state of Assam, India, August 22, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Bella Thorne out and about, Los Angeles, USA on June 14, 2017. (Photo by Broadimage/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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 boy jumps from a swing during sunset in Valras-Plage, southern France December 29, 2014. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

A woman wearing cut-off jeans and a halter-neck sun top in St Tropez, 1972. (Photo by Roy Jones)

Teachers carry children away from Briarwood Elementary school after the tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City. (Photo by Paul Hellstern/The Oklahoman)

Australia-based photographer Birte Person wasn't quite as afraid. With the safety of distance, she was brave enough to capture these stunning shots of the rare animals during feeding time at the Singapore Zoo.