An owl curiously peeks out from a tree hollow. The pictures of the spotted owlet were taken by Anuj Jain in Chandigarh, India in the second decade of November 2025. (Photo by Anuj Jain/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Drag king Riss Obolensky performs as drag king Norman Creebs during the Opening Cabaret at The London Clown Festival in London, Britain, on July 8, 2024. (Photo by Hollie Adams/Reuters)

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 woman at Foyles bookshop looks at a copy of J. K. Rowling's latest novel “The Casual Vacancy” which has gone on sale today starting at 8:00 am on September 27, 2012 in London, England. “The Casual Vacancy” is J. K. Rowling's first book aimed at an adult readership and is centered on a parish council election in a small West Country town. (Photo by Oli Scarf)

Anti-racist Loldiers of Odin clowns speak with police as they take to the streets against anti-immigration marchers in Tampere, Finland January 23, 2016. Police prevented the groups from confronting each other. On the northern fringes of Europe, Finland has little history of welcoming large numbers of refugees, unlike neighbouring Sweden. But as with other European countries, it is now struggling with a huge increase in asylum seekers and the authorities are wary of any anti-immigrant vigilantism. (Photo by Kalle Parkkinen/Reuters/Lehtikuva)

An artist from the state of Telangana reacts to the camera as they wait for their turn to perform during a media preview displaying a glimpse of culture of different parts of India, in New Delhi, India, Thursday, January 22, 2015. The tableaux will be part of the Indian Republic Day parade on Jan. 26. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

A paddler races in a giant pumpkin during the annual regatta on Lake Pisiquid in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Sunday, October 11, 2015. Participants hollow out the massive gourds and pilot them across the 500 meter course. (Photo by Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press via AP Photo)

Heidi Klum attends the Heidi Klum's 16th Annual Halloween Party sponsored by GSN's Hellevator And SVEDKA Vodka At LAVO New York on October 31, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Heidi Klum)