Revellers take part in New Year celebrations in Coin, near Malaga, southern Spain, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A protester sprays paint on the window of a bank during a rally against Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy, April 30, 2015. The Milan Expo will open in the city on May 1. Officials are counting on some 20 million visitors to the six month-long exhibition of products and technologies from around the world. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

Ratko Mladic makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands. Ex-Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic will make his first appearance at The Hague war crimes tribunal after being declared fit to stand trial. Mladic was arrested a week ago after going into hiding for the past 16 years and is charged with atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. (Photo Serge Ligtenberg/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)

Schoolchildren perfom during celebrations to mark 35 years of Zimbabwe's Independence at the National sports stadium in Harare, Saturday, April 18, 2015. President Robert Mugabe, 91, the central figure in Zimbabwean politics 35 years after Independence from Britain, has led the country since 1980. (Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP Photo)

A female Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter stands near a security position in Sinjar, March 13, 2015. Women fighters at a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) base on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, just like their male counterparts, have to be ready for action at any time. Smoke from the front line, marking their battle against Islamic State, which launched an assault on northern Iraq last summer, is visible from the base. Many of the women have cut links with their families back home; the fighters come from all corners of the Kurdish region. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih /Reuters)

A visitor looks at a creation by Russian artist Irina Nakhova presented at the Russia's pavilion during the 56th International Art Exhibition (Biennale d'Arte) titled “All the Worlds Futures” on May 5, 2015 in Venice. (Photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP Photo)

A visitor poses for a photo with a Crayon Shin-chan model during an exhibition at Joy City in Beijing May 5, 2015. The exhibition, which showcased fifty models of the Japanese cartoon character in different poses and expressions, will run from April 18 to June 22. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)