Images created with Post-it notes are seen in the windows of offices at 75 Varick Street in lower Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 18, 2016, where advertising agencies and other companies have started what is being called a “Post-it note art war” with employees creating colorful images in their windows with Post-it notes. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)

Ratko Mladic makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands. Ex-Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic will make his first appearance at The Hague war crimes tribunal after being declared fit to stand trial. Mladic was arrested a week ago after going into hiding for the past 16 years and is charged with atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. (Photo Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images )

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)

Actors reenact the famous picture of a sailor kissing a nurse on the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, near a replica sculpture in New York's Times Square August 14, 2015. The replica is being displayed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the iconic photograph of the most famous kiss in American history that was captured between an American sailor and nurse on August 14, 1945, marking the end of World War Two. The actors are hired by a tour bus company to pose for groups to photograph. (Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

A participant takes photographs of his friend while climbing up the stairs during Sky Run, a vertical marathon event, held in the 123-story Lotte World Tower, in Seoul, South Korea on April 22, 2023. (Photo by Kim Soo-hyeon/Reuters)

Nursing students attend a capping ceremony on May 10, 2021 in Jinan, Shandong Province of China. International Nurses Day is observed annually on May 12. (Photo by Zhang Yong/China News Service via Getty Images)

This photo released by the Cleveland Animal Protective League shows Lurleen, the nursing mother and Noland the puppy snuggling up Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Cleveland. Lurleen already is caring for four newborn kittens and now is nursing the orphaned week-old pit bull puppy in Cleveland. (Photo by AP Photo/Cleveland Animal Protective League)

Indian Air Force (IAF) cadets march during a graduation parade at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India, Saturday, June 20, 2020. A total of 123 flight cadets including 19 women officers were commissioned as flying officers on Saturday on successful completion of their training, a press release said. (Photo by Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo)