A child and any Asiatic Lion look at each other through a glass at Rome's Zoo, Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Photo by Gregorio Borgia/AP Photo)

American plus-sized model and television presenter Ashley Graham in the last decade of May 2023 wore black lingerie under her shimmering Prada look for a party in Cannes. (Photo by ashleygraham/instagram)

A member of the U.S. Secret Service looks on as Marine One carrying President Joe Biden departs from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on October 17, 2024. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Reuters)

A woman looks on during a protest asking for the release of Israeil and German people held by Hamas in Gaza, outside the Germany embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 25, 2023. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP 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)

The alligator trying to crack the turtles tough shell. These incr-edible pictures by Patrick Castleberry capture a real-life mutant ninja turtles hardy victory over a mighty ALLIGATOR during an exhaustive battle of brute strength.