Apple Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller talks about the display on the new iPad during an Apple product launch event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 7, 2012 in San Francisco, California. In the first product release following the death of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. introduced the third version of the iPad (iOS 5.1; Processor is an Apple A5X ARM-based unit; Display 2048 x 1536 pixels; Camera is set at 5 megapixels and has a 5-element lens plus auto face-detection, auto focus lock and image stabilisation for video; Wi-Fi + 4G) and an updated Apple TV. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

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)

Planes for Team Oracle perform over downtown San Francisco during a practice session for San Francisco Fleet Week October 5, 2007 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

A man standing on the first cables during the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge with the Presidio and San Francisco in the background, San Francisco, California, 1935. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

LiLou the therapy pig stands in front of a departures board at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 4, 2019. (Photo by Jane Ross/Reuters)

A man with a glitter beard marches along the San Francisco Pride parade route in San Francisco, California on Sunday, June, 26, 2016. (Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP Photo)

Members of the Barrio 18 gang run upon their arrival to the San Francisco Gotera penitentiary April 21, 2015. The Salvadoran goverment transfered 1,177 inmates, members of the Barrio 18 gang from Izalco jail to San Francisco Gotera in a effort to curb gang violence activity, according to local media. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

Members of the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps do their thing down San Francisco's Market Street, June 27, 1982. Police estimate the crowd to be 300,000 for the Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day parade and rally. (Photo by Carl Viti/AP Photo)