Men ride a scooter through a flooded street after heavy rains in New Delhi, India, August 6, 2019. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Giraffes at sunrise at the Loisaba Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya in the first decade of December 2025. (Photo by Andrew Mason/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj leaves nothing to the imagination in lingerie in the second decade of February 2022. (Photo by nickiminaj/Instagram)

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 photo made avialable on 05 August 2015 shows an Indian woman collecting drinking water from a water pump in the submerged village of Sreerampur, some 150 kilometers north of Calcutta, India, on 04 August 2015. At least 215 people have died in floods and a landslide following monsoon rains in India over the past week, 83 deaths were reported from the western state of Gujarat and 69 from eastern West Bengal. The worst-affected states were West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan, the Home Ministry said. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA)

A woman wearing traditional clothes reacts as men throw water at her during a traditional Easter celebration in Holloko, Hungary on April 10, 2023. (Photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)

“Google is launching balloons into near space to provide internet access to buildings below on the ground. About 30 of the superpressure balloons are being launched from New Zealand from where they will drift around the world on a controlled path. Attached equipment will offer 3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country”. – BBC News. Photo: A Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand. (Photo by Jon Shenk/Associated Press)

“You wouldn’t normally associate power stations with beautiful scenic shots but one photographer has traveled nearly 2000 to track down the ugliest energy plants and show them in a whole new light. Czech snapper, Radek Kalhous, uses Google Earth to find the perfect locations for his unique pictures and arrives at each site after sunset to create the atmospheric shots”. – Caters News. Photo: Nuclear power station Temelin, Czech Republic. (Photo by Radek Kalhous/Caters News)