A runner taking part in the 38th Annual Empire State Building Run-Up is pictured arriving on the 86th floor in the Manhattan borough of New York February 4, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

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)

A worker at the Jabal Saraj cement factory poses for a photograph in Jabal Saraj, north of Kabul, Afghanistan April 19, 2016. In an area desperately short of industry and jobs, local workers hope that the relaunch of the plant in Jabal Saraj, built by Czech engineers in 1957 and closed down by the Taliban in 1995, can show that Afghanistan's shattered industry can climb back to its feet after decades of war and destruction. But the outdated state-owned plant some 75 kilometres outside Kabul also shows how far it has to go before that promise can be achieved and there are serious questions over whether it has a viable future unless a new, modern facility is built to replace it. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

A woman, with her face covered with colored powders, dances during the Holi Festival of Colors in Lisbon, Sunday, September 15 2013. The festival, which is mainly celebrated during the Hindu spring festival Holi in some regions of India and Nepal, has become popular among people in other communities. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

Shoko Ota of Japan celebrates winning the Women's Standing 10km Individual Cross Country during day one of the Winter Games NZ at Snow Farm on August 13, 2011 in Wanaka, New Zealand. (Photo by Camilla Stoddart/Getty Images)

A devotee participates in Holi celebrations at the Nandagram temple, on March 22, 2013. (Photo by Manish Swarup/Associated Press)

Rapper Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, known professionally as Cardi B arrives at Queens Criminal Court on December 10, 2019 in New York City to answer charges over strip club incident. Cardi B has been charged in a 14-count indictment, including two counts of felony attempted assault on two bartenders at Angels Strip Club in the Flushing section of Queens. (Photo by John Angelillo/UPI/Barcroft Media)

American socialite Kylie Jenner in the second decade of November 2023 flaunts her assets in an Alo sports bra. (Photo by kyliejenner/Instagram)