Rio Takahashi of Japan gets ready for the final show of the Miss International Queen 2020 transgender beauty pageant in Pattaya, Thailand on March 7, 2020. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Riders from Netherland and Belgium crashes in the women's track cycling madison final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Izu Velodrome in Izu, Japan, on August 6, 2021. (Photo by Matthew Childs/Reuters)

Picture show a 39-foot whale that was crushed to death hanging lifelessly over the bow of a tanker in Japan. Horrified locals caught sight of the whale as the ship pulled into the harbour of Kurashiki last month, September 2021. (Photo by Newsflash)

Japanese artist Sachi shows off her creation of a realistic 3D cat portrait, made by using felted wool, at her house in Sagamihara, Japan, January 21, 2022. (Photo by Akira Tomoshige/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)

The Villarrica Volcano is seen at night in Chile, April 16, 2016. Villarrica is one of Chile's most active volcanoes. Picture taken with long exposure. (Photo by Cristobal Saavedra/Reuters)

“Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is an amusement park consisting of an aquarium, shopping mall, hotel, marina and amusement rides. It is located in Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It opened for business on May 8, 1993”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Shoal of sardines and sharks swim in a tank at Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise on March 19, 2009 in Yokohama, Japan. (Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

A woman holds a hedgehog at the Harry hedgehog cafe in Tokyo, Japan, April 5, 2016. In a new animal-themed cafe, 20 to 30 hedgehogs of different breeds scrabble and snooze in glass tanks in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district. Customers have been queuing to play with the prickly mammals, which have long been sold in Japan as pets. The cafe's name Harry alludes to the Japanese word for hedgehog, harinezumi. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)