Eugloss dilemma, male, Florida, Biscayne National Monument. (Photo and caption by Sam Droege/USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab)

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 man pulls a cart with collapsed cardboard boxes past boutiques in the Sinchon district in Seoul, May 5, 2015. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A man rides his motorcycle as the sun sets in Basra, Iraq, Monday, May 9, 2022. (Photo by Nabil al-Jurani/AP Photo)

Vernon Yates, founder of Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, lays his hands on Ty, a 400-pound tiger, as staff prepare to surgically extract a 4-pound hairball from the big cat, in Clearwater, Florida, on May 22, 2013. Ty is cared for by Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Seminole. The non-profit animal rescue group mainly serves by assisting Florida law enforcement with animals that have been seized. (Photo by James Judge/Courtesy BluePearl Veterinary Partners)

Aurora Australis from Beerbarrel Beach, by James Stone. Runner Up: Aurorae. (Photo by James Stone/Astronomy Photographer of the Year)

A man sleeps at Beirut's Corniche, a seaside promenade, in Lebanon May 2, 2016. (Photo by Alia Haju/Reuters)

A man pours water on his camel on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 18, 2017. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)