A photograph of a girl carrying a baby on the spot of the previous day's car bomb attack that killed killed and wounded hundreds at the Sadriyah market in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 19, 2007, is inserted into the scene at the same location on Monday, March 20, 2023, 20 years after the U.S. led invasion on Iraq and subsequent war. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)

A police officer points his gun while confronting a gang during a protest against Prime Minister Ariel Henry's government and insecurity, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 1, 2024. (Photo by Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)

A protester reacts as riot police officers detain him during anti-government demonstrations following nationwide deadly riots over tax hikes, in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 23, 2024. (Photo by Monicah Mwangi/Reuters)

Italy's #01 Valentina Gottardi waits for the ball in the women's pool A beach volleyball match between Italy and Egypt during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Eiffel Tower Stadium in Paris on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP Photo)

Embers remain among the debris after most of the buildings were burned to the ground in a wildfire at Gounsa Temple in Uiseong on March 26, 2025. At least 18 people have been killed in one of South Korea's worst wildfire outbreaks, with multiple blazes burning and causing “unprecedented damage”, the acting president said. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

Participants react as they try to reach the top of a greased pole to collect the prizes, during a “Panjat Pinang” competition, that is held to celebrate Indonesia's 79th Independence Day at Ancol in Jakarta, Indonesia, on August 17, 2024. (Photo by Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)

Free for Editorial Use Ballerinas from The Royal Ballet School perform on December 2, 2025 under Covent Garden's first festive snowfall to launch the destination's daily December snow flurries. (Photo by Paul Grover/Covent Garden)

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)