Ethiopian Orthodox worshippers celebrate the Holy Fire ceremony at the Ethiopian section of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on April 23, 2011 in Jerusalem's Old City, Israel. Hundreds of Orthodox Christians, all from different sects, participated in the ceremony a day preceding Orthodox Easter, and has been celebrated by worshipers for the last 1,200 years. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Israelis of Ethiopian origin take part in a rally against racism on January 10, 2012, in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi, Israel. Hundreds of demonstrators hit the streets of Kiryat Malachi, protesting what they call the discrimination of Ethiopian immigrants. According to Ethiopian residents of Kiryat Malachi, housing committees in the city have been refusing to sell them apartments. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/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)

Shaolin boys practice kung fu in the sweltering heat during the zen shaolin music ceremony at shaolin temple, Dengfeng, Henan province, China on August 4, 2019. Shaolin unique skills include: shaolin arhat formation, three gun sashimi, shaolin stick, shaolin stone lock skill, iron hand splitting bricks, water training, fist and foot sparring. (Photo by Sipa Asia/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Dozens of crocodiles are seen in an inactive farm in the Jordan Valley near the Israeli Petzael settlement in the West Bank on January 18, 2021. Hundreds of crocodiles are stranded in a farm after an Israeli businessmen lost his business as Israel passed a law in 2012 defining the crocodile as a protected animal, and banning raising the animals for sale as meat or merchandise. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP Photo)

A child plays with a mock submachine gun at a model Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station to mark the National Security Education Day at Hong Kong Police College in Hong Kong, China on April 15, 2021. The “education day” was organized to promote the sweeping legislation China imposed last year, marked with school activities, games and shows, and a parade by police and other services. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

A Palestinian employee sprays antibiotics on a newborn lion cub at Nama zoo in Gaza City, Saturday, August 13, 2022. Three one-day-old lion cubs were put on display inside a cardboard box Saturday at a Gaza City zoo. The lioness gave birth five days after Israel and Palestinian militants ended a fierce round of cross-border fighting that saw thundering Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket fire. (Photo by Fatima Shbair/AP Photo)

A woman uses a phone to take a “selfie” photo with cat as she stands along the barbed wire fence demarcating the “blue line” – drawn by the United Nations to mark Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 – while an Israeli Merkava battle tank is deployed nearby, at a position along the border near the village of Kfar Shuba in southern Lebanon on June 11, 2023. (Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP Photo)