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 girl presents the new Oktoberfest beer festival mug in a Oktoberfest tent in Munich, southern Germany, on August 21, 2014. The world famous beer festival Oktoberfest will takes place from September 20 to October 5, 2014. (Photo by Christof Stache/AFP Photo)

Participants hang from ropes as they learn how to use safety gears at an experience centre for construction safety training in Beijing, September 5, 2014. The centre which opened in June 2014 was established to educate workers about construction safety. According to the centre, about 1,000 construction workers undergo 3-hour classes which comprises of 33 modules every month. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

This picture taken on February 1, 2015 shows participants competing in a tofu (beancurd) wrestling competition in Fogang county, south China's Guangdong province. Participants, mostly women, fight it out in an inflatable pool which is filled with nearly two tons of fresh milk and tofu, in a promotion to attract tourists for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year holiday. The upcoming Chinese lunar new year of the sheep, which will fall on February 19 this year, marks the biggest festival of the year in China as hundreds of millions of people journey across the country to celebrate the season with their families. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

A prototype battery-powered plane, called Greased Lightning or GL-10 is pictured flying at NASA's Langley Research Center in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 1, 2015. The plane, which has 10 engines and can take off like a helicopter and fly efficiently like an aircraft, is currently in the design and testing phase. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)

The figure of an eight-year-old boy is seen inside a suitcase on a Spanish civil guard scanner screen at the border between Morocco and Spain's north african enclave Ceuta, Spain in this handout photo released May 8, 2015. A 19-year-old woman was arrested May 7, 2015 for the attempted smuggling of the boy, who was checked by medics and handed over to juvenile prosecutors office, according to authorities. (Photo by Reuters/Ministerio Del Interior)

In this undated photo provided by LittleFriendsPhoto.com via Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Kai, a 17-year-old male California sea lion at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Valejo, Calif. peers into the lens of photographer Seth Casteel, known for his “Underwater Dogs” photo series. ... (Photo by Seth Casteel/AP Photo/LittleFriendsPhoto.com via Six Flags Discovery Kingdom)