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)

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)

At the Krasnopresnenskaya station, the benches come from the Cathedral of Christ-Sauveur, which was built from 1839 to 1883 in memory of the victory of Russia against the army of Napoleon I. The cathedral was destroyed under Stalin in 1931, but the benches remained intact. Metro architects decided to install them in some stations. (Photo by Didier Bizet/The Washington Post)

A police officer removes a reveler from standing on a post as they guard and clear the street of revelers dressed in holiday themed costumes during SantaCon in New York Saturday, December 12, 2015. As thousands of Santa-suited merrymakers prepare to hit the city's streets and bars, organizers of the annual pub crawl say they're taking more steps than ever to deter naughty behavior. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

A human rainbow is created at a BASEOrlando coordinated event, “Orlando Strong Body Paint”, on Friday, June 17, 2016 in Orlando, Fl. The group created the rainbow, composed of volunteers numbering the same as that of the victims of the Pulse shooting, as a visual reminder of the amount of lives lost. (Photos by Amanda Voisard/The Washington Post)

A teenager holds a bag of Mangos, a tropical fruit who grow up in threes in Caracas, Venezuela on June 22, 2016. The shortage of food especially in areas in extreme poverty had made Mangos the daily food. (Photo by Alejandro Cegarra/The Washington Post)

Church members pray at the Dolieb Hill Presbyterian Church in the Protection of Civilians (POC) site at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) compound in Malakal, South Sudan on Saturday, July 9, 2016. (Photo by Jane Hahn/The Washington Post)

Emma Sees, Valor Christian, #6, accidentally grabs Windsor's Alexa Kopren's hair while both were chasing after the ball in the second half of the Colorado State girls 4A soccer championship at Dick's Sporting Goods Park May 23, 2018. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)