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)

In this Tuesday, August 2, 2016 photo released by Xinhua News Agency, people stand on a platform as the Transit Elevated Bus TEB-1 conducting a test run after it unveiled in Qinhuangdao, north China's Hebei Province. The 72-feet long and 25-feet wide Transit Elevated Bus (TEB) powered by electricity can carry more than hundreds passengers, is designed to go over the normal traffic to help ease traffic congestion without having to dig new tunnels or build elevated rail tracks. (Photo by Luo Xiaoguang/Xinhua via AP Photo)

Olympic gold medalist Arisa Trew of Australia competes on the vert ramp during the second day of “Exposure 2025” an annual all-girls skateboarding contest in Encinitas, California, U.S., November 2, 2025. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Wounded women arrive at a hospital for treatment after two blasts, which killed at least five and wounded a dozen, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt (90) is introduced before an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions in Pittsburgh, Sunday, November 14, 2021. (Photo by Don Wright/AP Photo)

Indigenous Q'eqchi girls practice taekwondo with their teacher, Danny Coy, on a dirt court in the middle of the village in Tipulcan village, San Pedro Carcha, Guatemala, on 25 November 2019 (issued 27 November 2019). Tipulcan village girls learn taekwondo to combat sexist violence and harassment they have suffered in their community in northern Guatemala. (Photo by Esteban Biba/EPA/EFE)

A Chinese woman wears traditional dress, or hanfu, as she has her picture taken by friends next to the first blossoms of spring at a park on March 21, 2021 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A woman takes a selfie in front of a Lunar New Year display featuring sheep at a shopping mall in Hong Kong, February 13, 2015. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)