A fisherman carries a sailfish on his head to the fish market in Hamarweyne near the port of Mogadishu on April, 4, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed Abdiwahab/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)

Lucie Clayton instructs pupils in the art of correct posture by balancing a glass and book on their heads at her finishing school in Old Cavendish Street, London. (Photo by William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images). 25th November 1936

A newborn baby pangolin climbs the walls of a cage in Bangkok, Thailand April 20, 2011. The Thai custom office showed 175 pangolins they found hidden in a truck heading into Bangkok. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Clearing skies await a tripod-toting photographer looking for a spot to capture the early-morning light at Portland Head Light, Thursday, January 17, 2013, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

A horse buggy is headed for the stables on a foggy night in New Orleans, Monday, December 18, 2017. (Photo by David Grunfeld/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP Photo)

Lioness and hyena posture to one another, in Masai Mara, Kenya, August 2015. A photographer captured one of the oldest rivalries in the animal kingdom as a pair of lions went head to head with a pack of hungry hyenas. (Photo by Ingo Gerlach/Barcroft Images)

A girl carries on her head a pile of dried shrubs she gathered for cooking and heating, in Kabul, Afghanistan November 18, 2015. (Photo by Omar Sobhani/Reuters)