China's Shang Chunsong prepares to compete in the uneven bars event of the women's individual all-around final artistic gymnastics competition at the Namdong Gymnasium Club during the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, in this September 23, 2014 file photo. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Sinabung mount spews ash to the air during an eruption near from Karo, North Sumatra on January 7, 2014. An Indonesian volcano that has erupted relentlessly for months shot volcanic ash into the air 30 times on January 4, forcing further evacuations with more than 20,000 people now displaced, an official said. (Photo by Sutanta Aditya/AFP 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)

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)

A child is seen during celebrations of Reindeer Breeder Day, the main holiday of indigenous peoples of the Russian Extreme North, in the village of Nosok on Taymyr Peninsula in north-central Siberia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Russia on April 17, 2021. (Photo by Alexander Ryumin/TASS)

Spot, a robot with dog-like movements, walks past a dog in Cathedral Square in Erfurt, Germany on April 20, 2021. Security service provider Ciborius, a provider of robotic security solutions with artificial intelligence, presented its artificial employee with high-resolution 360-degree all-round camera, ultra-bright LED light and a light detection system on Domplatz. (Photo by Michael Reichel/dpa)

English actress and model Gemma Chan attends the “Eternals” red carpet during the 16th Rome Film Fest 2021 on October 24, 2021 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Yemeni pro-government fighter is pictured during fighting with Huthi rebels on the south frontline of Marib, the last remaining government stronghold in northern Yemen, on November 10, 2021. A Yemeni military official said that 28 fighters from the pro-government Obaida tribe and seven government forces were killed in clashes with rebels south of Marib over the previous 24 hours. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)