A delegate poses for a photo at the end of the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Saturday, October 22, 2022. President Xi Jinping is officially set for a third term surrounded by allies, after key Communist Party officials without close ties to the Chinese leader exited the nation's top leadership body. (Photo by Bloomberg)

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)

Two three-month-old female white Bengal tiger cubs play with a zoo keeper in their enclosure at the Buenos Aires' Zoo, in Argentina, on April 17, 2014. Captive white Bengal tiger Cloe, gave birth to three cubs – two females and one male – on January 14, 2014. (Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP Photo)

In this photograph taken on April 16, 2014, a veterinary staff member of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme center conducts medical examinations on a 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun metal pellets embedded in his body in Sibolangit district in northern Sumatra island. (Photo by Sutanta Aditya/AFP Photo)

An election poster calling for the legalisation of marijuana and featuring internet meme “Grumpy Cat” hangs outside the Pirate Party's campaign headquarters in Berlin on August 16, 2013. The Pirates, who to everyone's surprise were elected into Berlin's regional parliament in September 2011, are trying to capitalise on their recent electoral gains in upcoming parliamentary elections, running on a platform of transparency in government. Germany goes to the polls on September 22, 2013. Placard reads: “Hurry up, my dope is everything”. (Photo by John Macdougall/AFP Photo)

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the 2012 World Press Photo award Friday for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral.

Photo: In this photo provided on Friday February 15, 2013 by World Press Photo, the 2013 World Press Photo of the year by Paul Hansen, Sweden, for Dagens Nyheter, shows two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad who were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. Their father, Fouad, was also killed and their mother was put in intensive care. Fouad's brothers carry his children to the mosque for the burial ceremony as his body is carried behind on a stretcher in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, November 20, 2012. (Photo by Paul Hansen/Dagens Nyheter/AP Photo)

Men dressed as soldiers pose with models before the opening of the Gamescom 2013 fair in Cologne,Germany, on August 23, 2013. The Gamescom convention is Europe's largest video games trade fair. (Photo by Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

Members of the local Cossack community undergo military training at a boot camp set up by the Russkiye Vityazi (Russian Knights) military patriotic club in the village of Sengileyevskoye, south of Stavropol, March 22, 2015. A group of cossacks from the village of Kazanskaya, who are planning a professional career at the military intelligence service, has arrived at a camp for training under the leadership of professional instructors. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)