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 vendor holds a teddy bear for sale on Valentine's Day in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, February 14, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Odelyn/AP Photo)

Model wearing dress made by chocolate during the fashion show at the World's Largest Chocolate Show Salon Du Chocolat held at Le Gourmet, Galeries Lafayette at Dubai Mall in Dubai on May 12, 2022. (Photo by Pawan Singh/The National)

Models use their phone lights during a power outage to put on make-up before the start of the third Ouaga Fashion Week in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Friday May 13, 2022. Ouaga Fashion Week returned to the Burkinabe capital after a two year COVID-19 related break. (Photo by Sophie Garcia/AP Photo)

Family members perform the Manene traditional rite, cleaning the relatives' preserved remains, in Lembang on August 15, 2022, which is held every three years in August and is said to bless the harvest of rice fields. (Photo by Andri Saputra/AFP Photo)

A small meadow pipit (left) is run off her feet as she tries to keep up with the demanding feeding schedule of an imposter - a larger cuckoo (right) on the Isle of Mull, Scotland in August 2022. (Photo by Graeme Cuerden/Solent News & Photo Agency)

This photo taken on July 19, 2020 shows a person taking photos while water is released from the Three Gorges Dam, a gigantic hydropower project on the Yangtze river, to relieve flood pressure in Yichang, central China's Hubei province. Rising waters across central and eastern China have left over 140 people dead or missing, and floods have affected almost 24 million since the start of July, according to the ministry of emergency management. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)