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)

All the people we meet, all the things we know, and all of our experiences shape our souls, forever marking our faces. This was probably the main idea of the performance piece created by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, in which his face was painted over by three calligraphers with the names of people he knew, personal stories, and random thoughts. Truly, it amazing just how much we can find out about a person just by looking at their face. Surely, not everyone has the ability to see into the soul of the person just by looking at their face, but those that do can easily see the person’s personality, their intelligence, and sometimes even get glimpse into their past. Though it sounds like magic to people who don’t have this ability, it is completely true. Somehow, our mind can pick up on the miniscule changes of the facial structure and figure out the dominant facial expressions of that person. (Photo by Zhang Huan)

Members of Nepal Army wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) carry the body of a person, who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the rain at the crematorium, in Kathmandu, Nepal on May 11, 2021. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

American media personality Paris Hilton and American television personality Nicole Richie at 20th Century Fox Television USA Television TV Classics in 2003. (Photo by Sam Jones/20th Century Fox TV/Kobal/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A person viewing the Northern lights over the lava landscape, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland. (Photo by Arctic-Images/Getty Images)

A person dressed as a zombie walks during the annual Zombie Walk in Mexico City, Mexico on October 21, 2023. (Photo by Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters)

American television personality Dolores Catania in the first decade of February 2024 gets the “hot gossip” in a staged photo. (Photo by dolorescatania/Instagram)

A person walks their dog in the morning mist at sunrise in Greenwich Park in south London on November 9, 2020. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP Photo)