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 reporter takes pictures of a soldier during the annual Han Kuang military exercise in Kinmen, Taiwan, September 7, 2015. Rustic Kinmen, with a population of less than 129,000, is a half-hour ferry ride to China, but it takes an hour to fly to major Taiwan cities. Just off its shores, glass-walled high-rises wink seductively from the booming mainland port of Xiamen in one of China's most prosperous provinces. (Photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters)

Chris Renshaw has recently been awarded the 2015 Africa Geographic “Photographer of the Year” award. Chris tells that his love “for anything wild and adventurous came from a deep rooted attachment to the African continent. This image shows that timing, a bit of anticipation, and luck allowed this incredible moment in time to be captured”. (Photo by Chris Renshaw)

The goats are known to be good climbers, but this one is taking the climbing thing to a whole new level. It clambered on the tip of its owner’s stick, as a part of the roadside performance for a quick coin, on the outskirts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, November 5, 2012. (Photo by Fayyaz Hussain/Reuters)

English actress Gemma Chan poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP Photo)

Nose to Nose; Human/Nature winner. “Doug Gimesy was documenting work at the Joey and Bat Sanctuary near Melbourne when he met a wombat (Vombatus ursinus) whose mother had been killed by a car. Gimesy watched as a young veterinary student bottle-fed the orphaned joey, then touched her nose to the joey’s in a tender moment of interspecies bonding”. (Photo by Doug Gimesy/BigPicture)

American actress and singer Zendaya shows off her endless legs in miniskirt and heels for a sеxy photoshoot for ELLE's September 2023 issue. (Photo by Steven Klein/ELLE Magazine)

Italian-American actress and model Julia Fox and American actress Chloe Fineman attend the Marshall Columbia x Cash App Pink Party during NYFW on September 7, 2023. (Photo by Deonté Lee/BFA.com)