March 28, 1967. Egg Roll; A large bunny attracted the attention of children and their parents during the annual Easter egg roll Monday on the south lawn of the White House. The bunny was made by Fred Johansen, Silver Spring, Md. Nearly 17,000 youngsters and adults took part in the egg rolling. The President and Mrs. John-son were not at the festivities because they were in Camp David, Md. The tradition of egg rolling was begun in 1878 during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. (Photo by Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Raccoon Fritzi eats at the home of veterinarian Mathilde Laininger in Berlin, Germany, January 27, 2022. She cares for four raccoons that can no longer be released into the wild. Raccoon Fritzi has an Instagram account with ten thousand followers. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

Motoring enthusiasts take part in the “Race The Wave” classic car meet on the beach at Bridlington, Britain on June 18, 2022. (Photo by Lee Smith/Reuters)

A devotee throws a clay idol of Hindu elephant-headed deity Ganesh into the sea on the third day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, in Chennai on August 24, 2020. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

Two girls perform with their body painted for money fort purchasing food for breaking fasting in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia on April 25, 2020, during the holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Rezas/AFP Photo)

A pigeon eating cherries in Bydgoszcz, Poland on September 14, 2018. The pigeon was captured at dinnertime, as he was caught on camera with its mouth full of a cherry. (Photo by Piotr Grny/Caters News Agency)

A boy holds a machine gun at a military hardware exhibition during a swear-in ceremony for new recruits of the Russian military-patriotic club “Yunarmia” (Young army) in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, October 27, 2018. (Photo by Pavel Rebrov/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)