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 Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, September 9, 2016. At a rocky outpost in Western Sahara, a new generation of soldiers who have never known war are mobilising as tensions resurface in one of Africa's oldest disputes after a quarter century of uneasy peace. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Girls play in the makeshift refugee camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Thursday, March 17, 2016. Leaders of the EU's 28 divided nations reconvene in Brussels in hopes of ironing out disagreements on a proposed agreement with Turkey in the migrants crisis. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

A model displays shoes during the Ryan LO Autumn/Winter show at London Fashion Week, Friday, February 19, 2016. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

A man daubed in colours looks on as he takes part in “Lathmar Holi” celebrations inside a temple in the town of Barsana, in Uttar Pradesh, India, March 15, 2019. (Photo by Altaf Hussain/Reuters)

Hino Team Sugawara's Teruhito Sugawara with Hirokazu Somemiya and Yuji Mochizuki in action during stage 10 of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia on January 15, 2025. (Photo by Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

Puerto Rico's Grace Claxton warms up before competing in the Women's 400m Hurdles Round 1 during the athletics event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on August 15, 2016. (Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP Photo)

A model presents a creation by Portuguese designer Alexandra Moura during the Portugal Fashion show in Porto, Portugal, 17 March 2019. (Photo by Jose Coelho/EPA/EFE)