A wounded member of the Afghan police reaction force waits for treatment in Alingar, Laghman province, on April 30, 2012. A bomb exploded next to opium poppy fields during a poppy eradication campaign in, wounding two Afghan policemen, police officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Actor Brad Pitt films a scene from “World War Z” in Glasgow City centre on August 18, 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland. The film, which is set in Philadelphia, will be shot in various parts of the city transforming it into ruins to shoot a post apocalyptic zombie film. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/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)

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 )

South Korean performers participate in a re-enactment of the battle of the Korean war during the ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in Cheorwon, near the border with North Korea on June 25, 2020 in Cheorwon, South Korea. Over 66,000 South Koreans have been separated from their families during the Korean War which started on June 25, 1950, and effectively split the Korean Peninsula into two over the 3-year conflict. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

North Koreans perform during the “Arirang” Mass Games at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, as part of celebrations ahead of the 60th anniversary marking the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, in this photo taken by Kyodo July 22, 2013. (Photo by KYODO)

U.S. Marine soldiers from 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, Battalion landing team deployed from Okinawa, Japan, participate in the U.S. and South Korean Marines joint landing operation at Pohang seashore on March 29, 2012 in Pohang, South Korea. Though South Korean has remained technically at war with North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the tension of Korean Peninsula has again raised as Pyongyang's new leader Kim Jong-Eun administration announced to launch a “Satellite” between April 12 to 16. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

A US Marine feeds an orphan kitten found after a heavy mortar barrage near “Bunker Hill” during the Korean War. (Photo by Sgt Martin Riley/Getty Images). 1953