A man sledges on Primrose Hill with his daughter and their dog on February 5, 2012 in London, England. The United Kingdom is experiencing heavy snowfall with many areas affected. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Tourists from Holland peak through a crack in a still-existing portion of the Berlin Wall at the main memorial to the Wall in Bernauer Strasse on the 22nd anniversary of the fall of the Wall on November 9, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The Berlin Wall, erected by the communist authorities of then East Germany in 1961, divided the city and prevented East Germans from travelling west until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

A leopard trapped in a well looks up to forest officials on the premises of the Kamakhya temple in Gauhati, India, Thursday, April 4, 2013. According to locals, the leopard fell into the well while scouring for food. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP 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)

“A Head For Business And A Bod For Sin”. Publication: “Acne Paper”, Issue #14 Fall 2012. Model: Karlie Kloss; Styling: Marie Chaix; Hair: Didier Malige; Make-up: Virginia Young. (Photo by Roe Ethridge)

“A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 500 people (20 had been hospitalized in serious condition), many of them hurt by broken glass. “There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK”, said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometres (930 miles) east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region”. (Photo by Alexey Bulaew/RIA Nowosti)

A model walks the runway during the John Galliano Ready to Wear Autumn/Winter 2011/2012 show during Paris Fashion Week on March 6, 2011 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images). PARIS, FRANCE – MARCH 06