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)

Members of Team Japan compete in the Artistic Swimming Team Acrobatic Final on day four of the Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championships at Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall A on July 17, 2023 in Fukuoka, Japan. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Children at Somerleyton School in Suffolk, UK on February 27, 2025 tuck into an iced bun, given by the Lord and Lady Somerleyton along with a £1 coin, as part of a long-standing tradition dating back to 1877". (Photo by Jason Bye for the Times)

An aircraft passes over houses at it lands at Heathrow Airport near London, Britain, December 11, 2015. Picture taken December 11, 2015. (Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters)

A walker has left a handprint on a snow- covered tree trunk on Grosser Feldberg mountain in the Taunus mountain range, Germany, 16 January 2017. (Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst/DPA)

View of Evolutions installation by artist Yann Nguema at the Saint-Jean Cathedral during the rehearsal for the Festival of Lights (Fetes des Lumieres) in Central Lyon, France, late December 7, 2016. (Photo by Emmanuel Foudrot/Reuters)

People take a walk among cherry blossoms at a park in Seoul, South Korea on April 6, 2022. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A preserved Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) that was collected by the Natural Resources Conservation Board (BKSDA) as evidence is burnt in Palembang, Indonesia on March 18, 2022. (Photo by Novaa Wahyudi/Antara Foto via Reuters)