“The White Lotus” co-stars Parker Posey (left) and Leslie Bibb reunite at the Gotham TV Awards near Wall Street in NYC on June 2, 2025. (Photo by Zach Hilty/BFA.com/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Flamingos preparing to take flight are reflected on Lake Tuz, which hosts thousands of flamingos every year, in Ankara, Turkiye, on June 24, 2025. This year, the lake has seen a decline in flamingo numbers due to drought, prompting the birds to shift their migration route to other wetlands across Turkiye. (Photo by Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A common gallinule runs across the water to escape a nearby alligator at Green Cay Nature Center in Boynton Beach, Florida on September 4, 2025. Unlike most waterbirds, gallinules have long toes that allow them to walk on floating vegetation. The species is known for its loud, cackling calls that often echo through wetlands. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Actors Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner are seen getting into character while on set filming scenes for their new movie “One Night Only” tonight in New York City on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Jose Perez/Backgrid USA)

Entitled Feasting at Sunset, this photo of a Brandt’s cormorant among pilchards was the winner of the Birds in the Environment category in the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year competition. (Photo by Franco Banfi/The Guardian)

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)

Jesinta Campbell arrives at “Bridesmaids” Celebrity Girls Night Out to celebrate the Australian premiere at Event Cinemas George Street on June 14, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams)

The moon rises behind Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas, Sunday evening, November 13, 2016. On Monday the supermoon will be the closest full moon to earth since 1948, and it won't be as close again until 2034. (Photo by Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP Photo)