A snow moon rears above a sycamore tree at Burrow Hill Cider Farm in Somerset, UK in the last decade of February 2024. (Photo by Jeff Overs/The Times)

A Puffin jumps into its burrow with a mouthful of sea eels to feed its chick on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire in Wales, Britain June 21, 2016. (Photo by Rebecca Naden/Reuters)

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)

In the mangrove swamps of Quang Lang in Vietnam fishermen use stilts to take them into the deeper water on December 18, 2021. (Photo by Bang Nguyen Trong/Solent News)

A newly born Sitatunga calf seen at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo on November 24, 2016 in Whipsnade, England. The swamp-dwelling species, also known as a marshbuck, is Africa's only true amphibious antelope. It was snuggled up in the leaves and almost perfectly camouflaged as it mother tended it. (Photo by Tony Margiocchi/Barcroft Images)

An alligator devours a fish carcass he stole from a raven in Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida on November 24, 2022. The Big Cypress Swamp is a freshwater swampland located near the Everglades National Park. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

The World Cup's sеxiest fan Ivana Knoll has been swamped by football supporters asking for selfies in the center of Doha during the filming of the show “Shoot for love” in Souq Waqif, Doha, on December 11, 2022. (Photo by Goran Stanzl/PIXSELL/Splash News and Pictures)

Revellers ride during the 54th annual brass band festival in the Serbian village of Guca August 7, 2014. Every year Guca is swamped by thousands of people taking part in the celebration of brass band music. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)