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 masked reveller poses in San Marco Piazza during the Venice Carnival, January 30, 2016. (Photo by Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)

Rugby Union, Hong Kong Sevens, Hong Kong Stadium on April 9, 2016: A fan wearing a mask is hugged. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Ostriches wear masks as they are transported by a truck for relocation in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, August 8, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A man walks pat sculptures with face masks on along an alley in Beijing on August 3, 2021. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)

Residents wearing masks to protect from the coronavirus cross a junction in Beijing on Wednesday, January 20, 2021. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

People dressed as a dancing devils with giant mask dance on a street, during a traditional celebration in Naiguata, Venezuela, Thursday, May 31, 2018. Carrying in their hands striking masks mostly animals and sea monsters, hundreds of men, women and children went out to dance frantically as possessed by evil spirits in an ancient ritual known as Dancing Devils of Naiguata, the unorthodox way of the coastal towns of Venezuela to venerate God during the celebrations of Corpus Christi. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

A Nepalese devotee prepares for a religious mask performance during the Seekaali Festival in Khokna village, near Kathmandu, Nepal, 07 October 2016. During the 300-year-old Seekali festival, elderly ethnic Newari devotees wear masks of 14 various goddesses including Lord Ganesha, Lord Shiva, Lord Laxmi, Lord Brahma and Lord Bishnu. The Khokna people celebrate the Seekaali festival as an alternative of the Dashain festival which is biggest festival of Nepalese Hindus that celebrates the victory of the gods over demons. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA)