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)

An Israeli spectator watches a giant T-Rex balloon during the Purim parade festival in Petah Tikva, Israel, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

A boy pushes a donkey cart loaded with bundles of cotton blooms that were collected by women cotton pickers in Meeran Pur village, north of Karachi September 25, 2014. Women make up the bulk of Pakistan's half a million cotton producers, but labour rights activists say they are often exploited by overseers, who often withhold their wages and may subject some of them to sexual harassment. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Shawn Layden, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, addresses the audience during the Sony Playstation at E3 2015 news conference at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Monday, June 15, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

A passenger aircraft passes over a residential house as it prepares to land at London Heathrow Airport in west London on October 17, 2016. Britain's government is considering whether to approve a third runway at Heathrow or expand air capacity in southeast England at another airport such as London Gatwick. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP Photo)

A Colombian soldier hugs his girlfriend during the graduation ceremony of soldiers in Nilo, Colombia, February 17, 2017. The soldiers will be deployed to occupy territories formerly controlled by FARC rebels. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters)

Models display a creation by K-Lynn Lingerie during a fashion show in the Lebanese capital Beirut on April 24, 2016. (Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP Photo)

Alisa, 10, gets a kiss from one of the wolves her family tamed in the village of Zacherevye, Belarus, on August 17, 2014. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)