A baby sloth uses his mother as a hammock while she feasts on papayas in Heredia province in Costa Rica in April 2023. (Photo by William Steele/Solent News)

Jess Fulton, 15, from Ayrshire rides her pony Harley through the waves at Irvine Beach, UK on October 20, 2025. (Photo by Jamie Williamson/The Times)

A girl waits for a devotee to apply a tilak on her forehead during the annual Jhiri Fair at Kanachack village on the outskirts of Jammu, India, Wednesday, November 5, 2025. (Photo by Channi Anand/AP Photo)

On October 31st, 2025, when the weather was in full autumn, citizens visiting the Taehwagang National Garden Chrysanthemum Garden in Nam-gu, Ulsan, are making memories among the chrysanthemums turning yellow. (Photo by Kim Dong-hwan)

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 competitor walks on tightrope during a performance in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, China, May 7, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A keeper stands next to llamas during the Annual Stocktake at ZSL London Zoo in London, Britain February 7, 2018. (Photo by Tom Jacobs/Reuters)

An airplane passes the moon as it makes its approach to Philadelphia International Airport, Sunday, September 7, 2014, in Philadelphia. (Photo by Matt Rourke/AP Photo)