A member of Team Chez Victor falls in the water while competing during the Ice Canoe race at the Quebec Winter Carnival in Quebec City, February 5, 2017. (Photo by Mathieu Belanger/Reuters)

British glamour model and actress Sabrina (born Norma Ann Sykes, 1936-2016), during a press conference at Park Lane House in London on June 24, 1955. (Photo by ANL/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Aerial view of villagers drying chili peppers at a rural cooperative on August 21, 2024 in Bozhou, Anhui Province of China. (Photo by Yang Zhongqin/VCG via Getty Images)

A model displays the collection of Italian luxury brand Diesel at its China's first flagship shop unveiling ceremony, at Henglong Plaza on November 26, 2005 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

A Nepalese woman sits inside her house in an alley of Bhaktapur, 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) east of Kathmandu, Monday, May 25, 2015, one month after the deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal. Two powerful earthquakes devastated Nepal on April 25 and May 12, killing nearly 8,700 people and injuring 16,800 others. The quakes and aftershocks also triggered many landslides in the Himalayan nation, which boasts eight of the world's highest mountains gets about half a million tourists every year, with many coming to trek the Himalayan nation's scenic mountain trails. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

A looter smiles as she runs away from a member of the South African Police Services (SAPS) inside the Lotsoho Mall in Katlehong township, East of Johannesburg, on July 12, 2021. Several shops are damaged and cars burnt in Johannesburg, following a night of violence. Police are on the scene trying to control further protests. It is unclear if this is linked to sporadic protests following the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma. (Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP Photo)

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 masked Bulgarian dancer takes part in the second competition day of the 24th International Festival of Masquerade Games “Surva” in the town of Pernik, Bulgaria Saturday, January 31, 2015. Some 5,000 people are expected to take part in the three-day festival devoted to an ancient Bulgarian pagan rite. Surva is performed by costumed men, some in sheepskin, or other colorful garments, bells and masks, who walk around and dance to scare away the evil spirits, in hope to provide a good harvest, health, fertility, and happiness. (Photo by Valentina Petrova/AP Photo)