Paragliders fly towards the landing area of the “Acro Show” above Lake Geneva in Villeneuve, Switzerland on Sunday, August 26, 2018. (Photo by Valentin Flauraud/Keystone via AP Photo)

In this Monday, July 24, 2017 photo, a police officer walks in front of a mural during a protest demanding an end to the current pension fund system, in Santiago, Chile. Protesters say the government pension system robs retirees of fair pension payments, and are demanding a new social security system with higher payments. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

The finishing touches are made to a new wax figure of Theresa May at Madame Tussauds in London, England on November 7, 2017. (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Wire)

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)

A woman takes a selfie picture as Turkish Kurds gather as part of Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakir, on March 21, 2016. Nowruz, the Farsi-language word for “New Year”, is an ancient Persian festival, celebrated on the first day of spring, on March 21, in Central Asian republics, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran. (Photo by Ilyas Akengin/AFP Photo)

In this file photo taken on Saturday May 1, 1993, an elderly communist woman clutches her head as police on horseback patrol the streets in Moscow. When Alexander Zemlianichenko started working as an AP photographer in Moscow, the Soviet Union was nearing its demise. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A woman from a flood affected area arrives to receive food and other items distributed by the religious charity group Al-Khidmat Foundation Pakistan, in Shabqadar near Peshawar, Pakistan, Tuesday, September 13, 2022. The death toll from three months of record-breaking floods in Pakistan rose to over 1,400, officials said Tuesday, as the minister for climate warned the prolonged monsoon rains will continue lashing this impoverished nation in the coming weeks. (Photo by Muhammad Sajjad/AP Photo)

A fashion lovers walks in the courtyard of the Louvre museum during Louis Vuitton ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2023 fashion collection presented Tuesday, October 4, 2022 in Paris. (Photo by Christophe Ena/AP Photo)