Change, 26, who is non-binary, poses next to their friend wearing pink, rainbow-decorated boots at the Pink Dot Rally in Singapore on June 24, 2023. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

A Just Stop Oil demonstrator throws orange confetti on court 18 as he disrupts the women's singles tennis match between Australia's Daria Saville and Britain's Katie Boulter on the third day of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Tennis Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 5, 2023. (Photo by Glyn Kirk/AFP Photo)

Participants take part in a high-heel race at a Gay Pride party in the central neighborhood of Chueca in Madrid on July 3, 2014. (Photo by Gerard Julien/AFP Photo)

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 woman dressed up as a zombie takes part in a zombie walk in the Gaslamp Quarter during the Comic Con International convention in San Diego, California July 13, 2012. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Excited Brits beamed as they grabbed a pint outside in Leeds, United Kingdom on April 17, 2021. Pubs and restaurants with outdoor space have been allowed to reopen as lockdown restrictions are eased in the UK. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

Morocco's Hanane Ait El Haj, right, watches as Colombia's Manuela Vanegas, down, challenges Morocco's Sakina Ouzraoui during the Women's World Cup Group H soccer match between Morocco and Colombia in Perth, Australia, Thursday, August 3, 2023. (Photo by Gary Day/AP Photo)

A Cucumber and a Chuta Cholero hug during the traditional festival “Desentierro del Pepino” (unearthing the Cucumber) to mark the beginning of carnival on January 21, 2024 in La Paz, Bolivia. People dug up the cucumber from the cemetery and walk through the streets with two characters, the Ch'uta and the Chola. (Photo by Gaston Brito/Getty Images)