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)

Garbage pickers collect ride on donkey cart while looking for recyclable materials at a rubbish dump in the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, August 23, 2016. Despite its huge untapped oil and gas reserves and steadily rising oil output and revenue, 23 percent of the population live below the poverty line, according to the Ministry of Planning. (Photo by Khalid al Mousily/Reuters)

Happiness on a Rainy Day by Fardin Oyan, Bangladesh. Winner of the young environmental photographer of the year. Many children in Bangladesh love to bathe and play in the rain. The country, which is flat and occupied by the huge Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, is exposed to floods, especially during monsoon season. (Photo by Fardin Oyan/2018 Ciwem environmental photographer of the year 2018)

Syrian refugee boys play with toy guns at Eminonu district in Istanbul, Turkey, 08 January 2019. (Photo by Sedat Suna/EPA/EFE)

Aerial view of the “Viracocha III”, a boat made only from the totora reed, as it is being prepared to cross the Pacific from Chile to Australia on an expected six-month journey, La Paz, Bolivia, October 19, 2016. An expedition in a boat made only of reeds crafted by indigenous Bolivians is getting ready to cross the Pacific from South America to Australia, in a fresh attempt to prove that ancient mariners were capable of making the journey. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

Biting Elbows – Official music video for Biting Elbows' 2013 single «Bad Motherf*cker». Believe me – for Putin's Russia it's VERY “severely”.