British model Jourdan Dunn poses on the red carpet at the Fashion Awards 2021 in London, United Kingdom on November 29, 2021. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

A reveller dances next to a police officer at Notting Hill Carnival in London, Britain on August 28, 2022. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

A sun bear reacts to triple-digit temperatures at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, where the temperature reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit on July 6, 2012. (Photo by Nati Harnik/Associated Press)

Revellers take part in the Notting Hill Carnival in London, Britain on August 27, 2018. The carnival has been held every year since 1966 and one of the largest festival celebrations of its kind in Europe. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

American singer, songwriter, and actress Lady Gaga attends the 27th annual Critics Choice Awards at the Savoy Hotel in London, Britain on March 13, 2022. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

A model presents a creation during the pushBUTTON catwalk show at London Fashion Week Women's A/W19 in London, Britain February 19, 2019. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

A three-metre-tall painted bronze sculpture, Seated Man 2016, by the artist Sean Henry, is lifted into its new home on July 23, 2019 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, England. (Photo by Christopher Thomond/The Guardian)

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)