A member of the Boi Bumba Garantido association performs during the Boi Bumba folklore festival at the Bumbodromo in Parintins, Amazonas State, Brazil, on June 28, 2024. Parintins is well-known internationally for its Boi Bumba folklore festival, which lasts for three days in late June and whose themes, costumes, and songs are based on indigenous cultures of the Amazon rainforest. (Photo by Michael Dantas/AFP Photo)

Workers use the traditional craft of picking waterlilies by hand arranging them into fascinating shapes in Bogor, Indonesia in October 2022. After the waterlilies are harvested and cleaned, they will be sold in the market and are usually used for decoration and bouquets. (Photo by Gatot Herliyanto/Solent News & Photo Agency)

French actress Adele Exarchopoulos poses during a photocall for the film “L'Amour Ouf” (Beating Hearts) at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 24, 2024. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP Photo)

The M25 Fire Spinners practise their skills along the Thames path at Runnymede in Surrey, UK on February 22, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Jay/Picture Exclusive)

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 ballet dancer practices in the sunshine at the Southbank skatepark in London on Monday, September 17, 2018, as Storm Helene is due to bring unseasonably warm weather in London and the south east, as the low pressure draws up warm air from the south. Forecasters have downgraded warnings that Helene could pose a risk to life when it hits this week – but warned coastal communities to stay vigilant. (Photo by Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire)

Brides-to-be participate in the “Running of the Brides” race in a park in Bangkok, Thailand March 25, 2017. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

A model waits backstage during a show of the third bi-annual Budapest Central European Fashion Week in Budapest, Hungary, 30 March 2019. (Photo by Zoltan Balogh/EPA/EFE)