A woman dances as she participates in a procession to mark Falgun Mahotsav ahead of Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Hyderabad, India, March 20, 2024. (Photo by Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo)

Lucha Libre wrestlers perform during the Lucha VaVoom spectacle “Cinco de Mayan” at The Mayan theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, late 04 May 2023 (issued 05 May 2023). The Lucha VaVoom presents Lucha Libre wrestling spectacles and mixes them with burlesque show elements. (Photo by Caroline Brehman/EPA/EFE)

Bayern's Giulia Gwinn heads the ball during the women's quarterfinal Champions League first leg soccer match between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain in Munich, Germany, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (Photo by Matthias Schrader/AP Photo)

Flames quickly grow as firefighters set a backfire on the eastern front of the Park Fire, which has grown to 360,141 acres and is 12 percent contained, on July 28, 2024 near Chico, California. Strong winds and dried vegetation fueled the fire that exploded 70,000 acres in the first 24 hours after a man allegedly pushed a burning car into a ravine to intentionally set the blaze. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

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)

Josef Tödtling – Longest duration full-body burn (without oxygen) Guinness World Records 2016. Location: Styria, Austria. (Photo by Richard Bradbury/Guinness World Records)

Two novice Buddhist monks walk alongside a basket seller to collect alms following a clerics rule of no footwear nor use of umbrellas in Mandalay, Myanmar, Friday, October 9, 2015. (Photo by Hkun Lat/AP Photo)

Drag queens Maude Boate, Anita Wiglit and Kita Mean pose for a photograph before boarding the NSW TrainLink Silver City Stiletto train at Central station in Sydney, Australia, 12 September 2019. Drag queens and kings will travel to the outback NSW town of Broken Hill to attend the annual Broken Heel festival, paying homage to the iconic Australian film “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. (Photo by James Gourley/AAP)