American reality show contestant Courtney Stodden is caught kissing a mystery woman on the beach in Santa Monica, CA on September 16, 2016. Courtney and the mystery brunette couldn't keep their hands of each other and didn't seem to care who saw their antics as they frolicked on the sand. (Photo by Canham/Splash News)

Head coach Kim Mulkey of the LSU Lady Tigers enters the stadium on the red carpet before playing against the Iowa Hawkeyes during the 2023 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament championship game at American Airlines Center on April 02, 2023 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Zookeeper Agata holds a rare newborn Brazilian three-banded armadillo inside its enclosure at the Wroclaw Zoo in Wroclaw, Poland on May 11, 2023. The Tolypeutes matatus, or the southern armor also known as bolita or tatu-bola, is a fairly popular animal in South America but is increasingly rare. The new zoo child was born on March 23. The species is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and threatened by habitat loss and hunting. (Photo by Omar Marques/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The rabbit population of San Juan Island, brought in to feed lighthouse keepers, got so big that in the 1930s foxes were introduced to kill them. Although they are red foxes, their coats can be orange, silver, black or multi-coloured. Picture date: September 2023. (Photo by Jun Zuo/Solent News)

In this image released on September 23, Madonna's daughter Lourdes “Lola” Leon is seen during Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 presented by Amazon Prime Video at The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in Los Angeles, California; and broadcast on September 24, 2021. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)

A man sleeps in a subway train in New York city on August 1, 2024. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

Change, 26, who is non-binary, poses next to their friend wearing pink, rainbow-decorated boots at the Pink Dot Rally in Singapore on June 24, 2023. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

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)