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)

Garbage pickers collect ride on donkey cart while looking for recyclable materials at a rubbish dump in the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, August 23, 2016. Despite its huge untapped oil and gas reserves and steadily rising oil output and revenue, 23 percent of the population live below the poverty line, according to the Ministry of Planning. (Photo by Khalid al Mousily/Reuters)

Contestants walk on stage during the “mini-miss” beauty contest in Bobigny, Paris suburb, September 22, 2012. The competition is open for girls aged 7 to 12. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Miss Bunni Lambada poses backstage during the Miss Pin Up NSW competition on October 23, 2010 in Sydney, Australia. Pinup girls from across New South Wales descended on The Entrance to compete in the state competition with hopes to represent NSW at the inaugural Miss Pin Up Australia national competition in January 2011. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

An internally displaced girl stands on an abandoned railway tracks beside a makeshift refugee camp in Sinjar town, in Idlib province, Syria November 20, 2015. (Photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)

“Festive preparation”. Baghnapara, Bardhaman, West Bengal, India. Two girls prepare for the Gajan festival. They will perform a play based on Indian mythology. (Photo by Krishnasis Ghosh)

A girl types on a computer as she demonstrates the interior of the new Volvo S90 during the Auto China 2016 auto show in Beijing April 25, 2016. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Three girls weep after they view a memorial for the rapper XXXTentacion, Wednesday, June 27, 2018, in Sunrise, Fla. The rapper was gunned down in a luxury sports car last week. (Photo by Brynn Anderson/AP Photo)