A participant rests while people take part in the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York, June 20, 2015. The annual parade, founded in 1983, seeks to bring mythology to life for residents, create confidence in the district and to allow artistic self-expression in public, according to the parade's website. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

From the waters edge a New York policeman urges two young children to put their bathing costumes back on. (Photo by Ed Clarity/Keystone/Getty Images). July 1949

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 person dressed as a zombie mermaid poses for a photo as she interacts with patrons at the Haunted Hotel Takeover Halloween party at hotel Ziggy in West Hollywood, California, U.S., October 29, 2022. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

A snowboarder wears a protective cushion at the Thaiwoo ski resort in Zhangjiakou close to venues for the Winter Olympics Beijing 2022, Hebei province, China, November 20, 2021. China hopes hosting the Games will springboard the country towards becoming a winter sports destination and will help deliver on a target set by President Xi Jinping to get 300 million Chinese involved in winter sports, with an aim to build a 1 trillion yuan ($157 billion) industry. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A mannequin's head is covered in a woman dress shop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, December 26, 2022. Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women's dress shops across the Afghan capital Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags. The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban's puritanical rule over Afghanistan. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Welsh actress and television personality Amber Davies poses on a motorbike in the last decade of September 2023 – as she prepares to go full throttle for next year’s Dancing on Ice title. (Photo by Mark Hayman – Fabulous)

Visitors look at the work titled “In Bed”, 2005 by Australian-born artist Ron Mueck at Triennale di Milano on January 09, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Giuseppe Cottini/Getty Images)