A woman struggles to drink homemade alcohol poured from the mouth of an idol of “Swet Bhairab” during the annual Indra Jatra festival to worship Indra, Kumari and other deities and to mark the end of monsoon season in Kathmandu, Nepal on September 15, 2019. (Photo by Monika Deupala/Reuters)

Palestinian children practise parkour along a beach in Gaza City at sunset on January 27, 2021. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP Photo)

Fisherman transport sharks to the fish market in the traditional fishing port in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 26 August 2020. According to media reports, the marine and fisheries sector is considered as one of the affected by the coronavirus pandemic, affecting more than 3.5 million fishermen and all sectors working throughout the supply chain. (Photo by Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA/EFE)

John Pfaff lays on a fallen tree Thursday, September 10, 2020, in Salt Lake City. Two days after a windstorm wreaked havoc in Utah, many schools remain closed and tens of thousands are still without power. (Photo by Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)

A worker stack bricks on his head at a brick factory in Lalitpur January 12, 2015. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/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)

Agricultural workers are rice-transplanting at the Namsa Co-op Farm of Rangnang District in Pyongyang, DPRK, on Tuesday, May 25, 2021. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

Rescuers carry an injured passenger on stretcher at Soshigaya Okura Station after stabbing on a commuter train, in Tokyo Friday night, August 6, 2021. A man with a knife attacked 10 passengers on a commuter train in Tokyo on Friday and was arrested by police after fleeing, fire department officials and news reports said. (Photo by Kyodo News via AP Photo)