A man invades the Red Carpet and is held by security at the “How To Train Your Dragon 2” Premiere at the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2014 in Cannes, France. The man stuck his head up America`s skirt before being dragged away by security. Pictured: Djimon Hounsou, Cate Blanchett, America Ferrera and Kit Harington. (Photo by Camilla Morandi/IPA)

Rescue operations are undergoing to recover the sunken ferry MV Miraj 4 in the Megna River near Munshiganj, Bangladesh, 16 May 2014. The death toll in the Bangladesh ferry disaster rose to 26 on 16 May, including children and women and many more feared dead as the ferry, carrying more than 200 passengers on board, sunk during a storm on 15 may 2014, police authorities said. (Photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA)

In this October 16, 2014 photo, a man cleans his American classic car before going to work in Havana, Cuba. While the U.S. embargo that took effect in 1961 stopped the flow of new cars, and most parts, a few Cubans now manage to bring in replacement parts when friends or family visit from the U.S. (Photo by Franklin Reyes/AP Photo)

A Pakistani policeman wades across floodwaters in Lahore on August 19, 2024. Flash floods triggered by the latest spell of monsoon rains are wreaking havoc across parts of Pakistan, claiming the lives of 14 people in the previous 24 hours, an official at the provincial disaster management authority said on August 19. (Photo by Tahir Jamil Khan/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

A performer wearing a lion mask performs the Ise Daikagura lion dance at the remote village of Yamanawa on February 08, 2021 in Ryuo, Japan. Ise Daikagura is a group of traditional Lion Dance performers who pray in front of farmers houses and businesses for good grain harvests and disease-free lives. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

Members of the Mahogany Blue Baby Dolls including Victoria “Lady Lotus” Spotts (C) march in the 25th Anniversary Satchmo Salute second line parade, honoring New Orleans jazz legend Louis Armstrong, on August 3, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Revelers marched from historic St. Augustine Catholic Church in the Tremé neighborhood to the New Orleans Jazz Museum where Satchmo Summerfest is being held. (Photo by Mario Tama/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)

In this August 17, 2016, photo, from left to right, Chhering Chodom, 60, Tashi Yangzom, 50, Lobsang Chhering, 27, and Dorje Tandup, 58, drink milk tea on the side of the road. For centuries, the sleepy valley nestled in the Indian Himalayas remained a hidden Buddhist enclave forbidden to outsiders. Enduring the harsh year-round conditions of the high mountain desert, the people of Spiti Valley lived by a simple communal code – share the Earth's bounty, be hospitable to neighbors, and eschew greed and temptation at all turns. That's all starting to change, for better or worse. (Photo by Thomas Cytrynowicz/AP Photo)