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 DC-10 air tanker delivers flame retardant to the Blue Cut fire in Wrightwood, Calif., Wednesday, August 17, 2016. A wildfire with a ferocity never seen before by veteran California firefighters raced up and down canyon hillsides, instantly engulfing homes and forcing thousands of people to flee, some running for their lives just ahead of the flames. (Photo by Alex Gallardo/AP Photo)

A gull gives its familiar cry on the roof of a beach bar on the Baltic coast on July 16, 2024. (Photo by Jens Büttner/dpa)

A stroller walks his dogs in an autumnally colored forest in Cuxhaven, nothern Germany on November 7, 2018. (Photo by Patrik Stollarz/AFP Photo)

China has recently relaxed its one child policy that was used to control a burgeoning population. A couple has their wedding photo taken in an old quarter of Beijing on May 24, 2016. (Photo by Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Manuelle aka the Snake Woman poses for photographs with a beer as she promotes the fnnual Beer Festival Oktoberfest in Cologne, Germany on September 22, 2014. (Photo by Federico Gambarini/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A man takes pictures of the Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, as it glows on the horizon over waters of Lake Ellesmere on the outskirts of Christchurch on April 24, 2023. (Photo by Sanka Vidanagama/AFP Photo)

Chinese Kazakh eagle hunters sit on horseback as they travel to a local competition on January 29, 2015 in the mountains of Qinghe County, Xinjiang, northwestern China. The festival, organised by the local hunting community, is part of an effort to promote and grow traditional hunting practices for new generations in the mountainous region of western China that borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. The training and handling of the large birds of prey follows a strict set of ancient rules that Kazakh eagle hunters are preserving for future generations. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)