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)

Actor Candis Cayne performs at John Varvatos + OUT Support the Gay Men's Chorus of LA on September 29, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for John Varvatos)

A visitor poses for pictures at the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China on January 5, 2025. (Photo by Xiaoyu Yin/Reuters)

A koala soaked by floodwaters sits atop a fence post to escape the deluge in the town of Stirling in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia in this picture taken September 14, 2016. (Photo by Russell Latter/Reuters)

Peasants celebrate a traditional festival “Corpus Cristhi” since the time of the conquest, in Anolaima in the department of Cundinamarca, Colombia on June 29, 2022. Peasants collect all kinds of fruits and assemble great representative figures in gratitude to God for this festival. (Photo by Yair Suarez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

English model Cara Delevingne attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibition on Monday, May 2, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Photo)

Russia's Kamila Valieva performs during the Exhibition Gala at the Rostelecom Cup 2021 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Sochi on November 28, 2021. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)

Mei Hoshizuki and AZM compete during the Women's Pro-Wrestling “Stardom” at Korakuen Hall on September 28, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)