Two three-month-old female white Bengal tiger cubs play with a zoo keeper in their enclosure at the Buenos Aires' Zoo, in Argentina, on April 17, 2014. Captive white Bengal tiger Cloe, gave birth to three cubs – two females and one male – on January 14, 2014. (Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP Photo)

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)

In this photograph taken on April 16, 2014, a veterinary staff member of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme center conducts medical examinations on a 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun metal pellets embedded in his body in Sibolangit district in northern Sumatra island. (Photo by Sutanta Aditya/AFP Photo)

Tony Appleton, a town crier, announces the royal birth outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital after Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby boy in central London July 22, 2013. Prince William's wife Kate gave birth on Monday to a baby boy, in the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, who becomes third in line to the British throne, his office said. The royal baby, the couple's first child, was born at 4:24 p.m. (15:24 GMT), weighing 8 lbs and 6 oz. (Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

Students at Godolphin School, Salisbury, England, receive their A-Level results on Thursday August 13, 2020. Thousands of school-leaving children in Britain have been left distraught after finding out Thursday that they were given lower-than-expected grades, with many questioning how the results were calculated after the coronavirus pandemic cancelled exams key for college applications. (Photo by Russell Sach/The Telegraph)

People gather beneath rainbow lights following Cinespia’s screening of “The Wizard of Oz” at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, presented by Amazon Studios & Prime Video, on July 31, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Summer screenings have returned to the iconic cemetery after a hiatus amid the pandemic last summer. Actress Judy Garland is laid to rest at the cemetery where many movie legends are buried. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

“A Double Eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a denomination of $20. (Its gold content of 0.9675 troy oz was worth $20 at the then official price of $20.67/oz). The coins are made from a 90% gold (0.900 fine = 21.6 kt) and 10% copper alloy”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A “Double Eagle” gold twenty dollar coin is displayed above a catalogue picture showing the reverse side of the coin at Goldsmith's Hall on March 2, 2012 in London, England. Nearly half a million of these coins were originally minted in the midst of the Great Depression in the US. Only 13 are known today after the rest were melted down before they ever left the US Mint, sacrificed as part of a strategy to stabalise the American economy. In 2002 a Double Eagle sold at auction for $7.6 million. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Animal rights activists covered with fake blood sit on the floor during a protest against the use of animals in research to mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories in central Madrid April 24, 2014. The sign reads, “How many rabbits do your shampoo kill?”. (Photo by Andrea Comas/Reuters)