A girl looks on at a diver dressed as Santa Claus performing during a promotional event for Christmas in Seoul, South Korea on December 3, 2021. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A girl covers her face as she is daubed in colours during the religious festival of Holi inside a temple in Nandgaon village, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, March 5, 2020. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

A man throws water on a girl playing in a pool, during a hot weather, amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sidon, southern Lebanon on May 21, 2020. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)

A girl reacts while getting a nasal swab sample at a testing and screening facility for the new coronavirus in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, July 17, 2020. (Photo by Fareed Khan/AP Photo)

A girl wears a cheongsam during a fashion show at a shopping mall in South Tangerang, Banten province, Indonesia on February 8, 2024. (Photo by Sulthony Hasanuddin/Antara Foto via Reuters)

A girl walks past the debris and mud following the floods brought by Typhoon Gaemi, in Marikina City, Metro Manila, Philippines, on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters)

(L-R) Giselle, Ningning, Karina and Winter of South Korean girl group aespa attend the 2025 Billboard Women in Music at YouTube Theater on March 29, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

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)