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 villager dries chillies on September 1, 2020 in Bijie, Guizhou Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

A woman tries to hold an umbrella amidst gusty winds as Cyclone Michaug is expected to make landfall on the eastern Indian coast, at Foreshore Estate Beach, in Chennai, India, 03 December 2023. The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for heavy rains in Chennai as the cyclonic storm, “Cyclone Michaung” is anticipated to make landfall between Andhra Pradesh's Nellore and Machilipatnam on December 05. (Photo by Idrees Mohammed/EPA/EFE)

British housewives toss pancakes in skillets as they run through the streets of Olney, England, in the community's annual race which follows a 500-year-old tradition, February 6, 1951. Mrs. Isabel Dix, 22, extreme right, won the race covering the 415 yards from the Parish pump to the door of Sts. Peter and Paul church in one minute, 12.1 seconds. (Photo by AP Photo)

“The Carnival Triumph finally made port on Thursday night, after what should have been an idyllic four-day cruise turned into a grueling week-long ordeal for more than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. Some kissed the ground as they disembarked the ship, while others swore never to go on another cruise again. Many spoke of the well-documented unsanitary conditions on board the 272-metre Triumph, which lost power in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday”. – Tom Dart and Adam Gabbatt via Guardian

Photo: Kendall Jenkins of Houston kisses the ground after stepping off the Carnival ship Triumph (Photo by AP Photo)

An annual fire festival is held in Nachikatsuura, Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, on July 14, 2019. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)

An aircraft flies past sculptures of dinosaurs at the “Valley of Animals” park in Chandigarh, India on November 9, 2019. (Photo by Vijay Mathur/AFP Photo)

A demonstrator confronts a police officer outside the 18th District Police station during a rally after the death of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man who was shot by police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 27, 2020. (Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/Reuters)