Workers from the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium and Imagine Exhibitions put together an animatronic spinosaurus outside the science center in West Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, October 27, 2015. The giant spinosaurus is part of the Dinosaurs Around the World exhibit, set to open on November 1. (Photo by Maria Lorenzino/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP Photo)

Women wearing prosthetic legs participate in a public photo session at the Hasselblad and Profoto booth, during the CP+ camera and imaging equipment trade fair in Yokohama south of Tokyo, February 14, 2015. Japanese prosthetist Fumio Usui inspired the event after collaborating with photographer Takao Ochi in the book project “Amputee Venus” that portrays 11 Japanese women with artificial legs, local media reported. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Couples kiss during a kissing contest in Wuhan, Hubei province, November 23, 2014. Some 20 couples attended the contest and the winners have been awarded an iPhone 6, according to local media. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Members of the Colombian Navy stand guard on top of a seized submarine built by drug smugglers in a makeshift shipyard in Timbiqui, department of Cauca February 14, 2011. Colombian authorities said the submersible craft was to be used to transport 8 tons of cocaine illegally into Mexico. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/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)

A visitor looks at pictures of French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), on July 1, 2013 during the 44thd annual Rencontres d'Arles photography festival in Arles, southern France. The event runs until September 22. (Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP Photo)

A boy runs with a burning barrel soaked in tar at the annual Ottery St Mary tar barrel festival on November 5, 2015 in Ottery St. Mary, England. The tradition, which is over 400 years old, sees competitors (who must have been born in the town to take part) running with burning barrels on their backs through the village, until the heat becomes too unbearable or the barrel breaks down, starting with junior barrels carried by children and continuing all evening with ever larger and larger barrels. The event, which has been threatened with closure on previous years due to increasing public liability insurance costs, raises thousands of pounds for charity and attracts spectators from around the world. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Residents watch the forest burn in Portezuelo, Chile, Sunday, January 29, 2017. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced that the country will continue with its various measures to deal with wild fires, one of the biggest natural disasters in the country for decades, according to a government report released on Sunday. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)