Savita, a street performer, helps her dog to balance on empty tin containers as they perform at a roadside in Ahmedabad September 7, 2014. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Employees of the Park Royal resort wait for a shuttle to take them to work early in the morning on April 2, 2015 in Acapulco, Mexico. Despite problems with cartel violence Semana Santa is one of the biggest tourist weeks of the year in Acapulco, a city whose entire economy depends on tourism, and officials expect around 350,000 mostly Mexican visitors this week. (Photo by Jonathan Levinson/The Washington Post)

In this April 16, 2015 photo, costume jewelry is on display for sale at al-Aqeeliya open-air auction market in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A man came with the suitcase full of beaded jewelry and sold the whole bag to the auction winner, who had just a few moments to inspect its contents before buying. (Photo by Hasan Jamali/AP Photo)

A photographer tested the concentration of several pairs of dogs as he captured their reactions to treat time in a series of shots. Christian Vieler, 47, of Waltrop, Germany, has been a professional dog photographer since 2016. He came up with the idea of snapping two dogs catching treats simultaneously. Here: Basset Hounds. (Photo by Vieler Photography/Caters News Agency)

A woman crosses the street on a foggy morning in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, October 29, 2021. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

People gather to view a new art installaiton at Waterfront Park entitled, Interstellar Influencer (Make an Impact) by Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang of STUDIOKCA on Saturday March 30, 2024 in Alexandria, VA. The artwork depicts an asteroid that struck the region millions of years ago. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

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)

Selena Gomez, left, and Taylor Swift arrive at the MTV Video Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday, August 30, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Photo)