Katie Loynes of the Blues attempts to mark the ball during the AFLW Preliminary Final match between the Carlton Blues and the Fremantle Dockers at Ikon Park on March 23, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Mike Owen/Getty Images)

Bangladeshi laborers unload watermelons from a boat at the Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 03 April 2024. Watermelon is in harvesting season and is filling the city markets as it arrives from the southern part of Bangladesh. According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Barishal has set an ambitious goal to expand watermelon cultivation to 54,002 hectares across six high-yielding districts in the division, which is 14 percent higher than last year. (Photo by Monirul Alam/EPA/EFE)

A dog named Luna wears a dracula costume during a Halloween pet party at a mall in Valenzuela city, Philippines on Saturday, October 19, 2024. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP Photo)

A hunter holds her tamed golden eagle during a traditional hunting contest near the village of Tole Bi in Almaty region, Kazakhstan on November 9, 2024. (Photo by Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters)

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)

Mount Sinabung continues to spew thick smoke into the air in Karo, North Sumatra on October 30, 2020. (Photo by Albert Ivan Damanik/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

An Iranian woman wearing a face mask walks on a street in Tehran, Iran, 19 October 2020. According to the Iranian Health ministry, Iran reported its highest daily COVID-19 death toll of 337 and 4,251 new infections in past 24 hours as it appears that Iran is in a third wave of COVID-19 outbreak. (Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/EFE)

A woman wearing a gown hands out campaign leaflets to a coconut juice vendor during a Santacruzan-themed house-to-house campaign for Philippine Vice President and presidential candidate Leni Robredo, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, May 5, 2022. (Photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters)