A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper performs a stunt on his motorcycle during a road show to celebrate 75 years of India's Independence, in Ahmedabad, India, August 25, 2021. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

An Iranian girls a bag of goldfish ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, in Tehran, Iran on March 17, 2021. (Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

Revellers attend drag extravaganza “Bushwig” that was cancelled last year due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in New York City, New York, U.S., September 12, 2021. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters)

A woman poses for a photo on a street decorated for the fore coming Lunar New Year in Bangkok's Chinatown on February 9, 2021. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/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)

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)

A cosplayer dressed as a “remote worker” with “corporate slave” written on his glasses poses for a photo on New Year's Eve at Comiket, the largest comic market that had been postponed for two years because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Tokyo, Japan December 31, 2021. (Photo by Androniki Christodoulou/Reuters)

Puryanti, a 29-year-old woman, and her 15-year-old nephew Raffi, cover themselves from head to toe in silver paint to become “manusia silver” (silver people), as part of their act to make a living, in Depok, on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, February 6, 2021. (Photo by Adi Kurniawan/Reuters)