Darth Vader balloon above Clifton Suspension Bridge during the hot air balloons mass ascent at sunrise on the first day of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta on August 8, 2019 in Bristol, England. The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is Europe's largest annual meeting of hot air balloons, attracting over 130 hot air balloons from across the globe. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

During Madrid's pride week, participants compete during the annual high heel race in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, July 29, 2023. Competitors must wear shoes with a heel of a minimum of 15 centimetres (5.9 inches). (Photo by Bernat Armangue/AP Photo)

A fireman looks on as a Canadair aircraft drops water to extinguish a wildfire in Sicily's Trapani, Italy on August 27, 2023. (Photo by Antonio Cascio/Reuters)

A model wears a creation for the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2024 womenswear fashion collection presented Monday, October 2, 2023 in Paris. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/AP Photo)

“We've reached 40km.” – Participants run at the 40km mark of the 2025 Chosun Ilbo Chuncheon Marathon, held in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, South Korea on the afternoon of the October 26, 2025. (Photo by Park Seong-won)

Invasion (laser girls) 2017. “I’m always thinking about my art practice, so any experience I have may spike a visual when I have an idea in mind. An example is that, when I was thinking about the Invasion series, I was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds (1963). I love Hitchcock’s other movies and have been contemplating a series based on Rear Window (1954). I also find inspiration outside the cinema in music clips and magazines”. (Photo by Michael Cook/Perimeter Books)

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 Palestinian protester uses a sling shot to throw stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes on the Israeli border Eastern Gaza City, Friday, November 6, 2015. (Photo by Adel Hana/AP Photo)