Two young boys kneel on stools on either side of a round table as one uses a match to this the other's cigarette, November 12, 1928. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images)

A horse named Quinn, with a skeleton painted on it to help educate officers, is pictured during a visit by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (unseen) and Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (unseen) to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment at the Hyde Park Barracks in west London on October 24, 2017. (Photo by Chris Jackson/AFP Photo)

Rapper Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, known professionally as Cardi B arrives at Queens Criminal Court on December 10, 2019 in New York City to answer charges over strip club incident. Cardi B has been charged in a 14-count indictment, including two counts of felony attempted assault on two bartenders at Angels Strip Club in the Flushing section of Queens. (Photo by John Angelillo/UPI/Barcroft Media)

A Palestinian man reacts as he confronts Israeli forces during a protest against Israeli settlement activity near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 11, 2022. (Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)

Wearing a satin and lastex top and a skirt made of fishnet Ann Evors, a Paramount player, poses for the cameramen on the beach, circa 1928. (Photo by Central Press)

Penitentes, or nieves penitentes (Spanish for “penitent-shaped snows”), are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice, closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun.

Marek Jama performs during the gala of the 41 st Monte- Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco on January 25, 2017. (Photo by Eric Gaillard/AFP 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)