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)

The battleship USS Iowa fires its 16-inch guns during duty in the Persian Gulf on December 16, 1987. In 1943, the Iowa ferried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran Conference, where post-WW II leaders divided up the world. The ship fought battles from the South Pacific to Korea and escorted convoys through the Persian Gulf. Forty-seven sailors died atop its deck when an explosion ripped through a gun turret. Now, the new port for the retired USS Iowa just might be the home of California's annual asparagus festival, the gritty agriculture port town of Stockton on the San Joaquin River, about 80 miles inland from San Francisco. (Photo by Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

Shaolin martial arts students perform Kung Fu suspended on wires in a rehearsal for a live-action night show in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China on April 28, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)

Yoga students take a class with Nigerian Dwarf goats held by the 'Hello Critter Goat Yoga' team at the Golden Road Pub in Los Angeles, California on May 7, 2018. The goat yoga fitness craze is sweeping the United States with classes now held in pubs, farms and halls across the country. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)

North Korean youngsters sing and play accordions to entertain foreign visitors including United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who visited Pyongyang, May 4, 1979. Visitors report music education in North Korea begins at an early age and is taken seriously by children and adults. (Photo by Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

Tightrope walker Tatian-Mosio Bongonga hangs from a tightrope as she pauses while scaling the Monmartre hill towards the Sacre Coeur Basilica (not pictured) in Paris, France, July 20, 2018. (Photo by Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)

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)

Protestors Stacie Ellen Murphy, Alanna Cassidy and Lena Seale walk in their Underwear on Grafton Street in Dublin, support of victims of sexual violence in Irerland on Wednesday, November 16, 2018. (Photo by PA Wire)