A woman smokes marijuana during the annual 4/20 marijuana rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, April 20, 2017. (Photo by Chris Wattie/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)

Three very colouful alpacas enjoy the hot weather at Toft Farm, Rugby, on July 19, 2013. (Photo by Caters News)

Karis, an eleven week old lion cub, plays in fallen leaves brushed up by keepers in her enclosure at Blair Drummond Safari Park, near Stirling, Scotland, on November 20, 2013. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

The first seal pup to be born this season at a major colony of grey seals on the Farne Islands sits beside its mother on Brownsman Island, England on September 30, 2015. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images)

Pupils of the Dao ethnic tribe return home from school along a hillside path at Suoi Thau village in Hoang Su Phi district of Vietnam's northern province of Ha Giang, located at the border with China, September 18, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/Kham)

The Peugeot vehicle of driver Carlos Sainz of Spain is seen at the technical verification area ahead of the Dakar Rally 2016 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

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)