Swedish actress Malin Akerman arrives at the 2025 Baby2Baby gala on Saturday, November 8, 2025, at Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Photo)

Kenya Wildlife Service rangers and capture team cool down a sedated elephant at Mwea National Park, east of the capital Nairobi, Kenya Monday, October 14, 2024. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

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)

Joseph Fons holding a Pride Flag, runs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled that a federal law banning workplace discrimination also covers sexual orientation, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 15, 2020. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Reuters)

A woman wearing a face mask to protect against the spread of COVID-19 walks past a mask clad Acrocanthosaurus display at the Witte Museum, Thursday, January 28, 2021, in San Antonio. (Photo by Eric Gay/AP Photo)

A military helicopter flies over people during the Afghan Security Forces Exhibition, at the Darul Aman Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 3, 2021. The three-day military exhibition in Kabul allowed civilians to have a first hand view and take pictures of weaponry used by Afghan Security forces. (Photo by Rahmat Gul/AP Photo)

A stunt rider performs on the wooden wall during a fair in Bogra, Bangladesh, February 10, 2021. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Fishermen are seen near thousands of fish found dead at Lake Maninjau due to lack of oxygen levels at the bottom of the lake and bad weather that hit the area in Agam, West Sumatra Province, Indonesia on April 29, 2021. (Photo by Muhammad Arif Pribadi/Antara Foto via Reuters)