Two journalists stand on the back of a horse-shaped statue on display to promote the art performance titled “Yu Ma” presented by Taiwan’s Paper Windmills Theater, during a photo call outside the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei on March 24, 2021. (Photo by Sam Yeh/AFP Photo)

People look at a skeleton couple kissing installation dubbed “Till Death Do Us Part” during a Valentine's Day event in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, February 13, 2024. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

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)

Philip Colbert poses in front of his artwork at The Gallery Hosu on March 31, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images for Philip Colbert Studio)

This undated photo provided by the Ford Motor Co. shows the 1948 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet V12. Thirteen years after the last Continental rolled off a Michigan assembly line, Ford Motor Co. is debuting the new Continental in concept form at the New York Auto Show on Monday, March 30, 2015.The production version goes on sale next year. (Photo by AP Photo/Ford Motor Co.)

Human canvases modelling world famous artworks including Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Edvard Munch's The Scream take to the streets of London in a bid to mend Britain's disconnect with art on September 25, 2017. Award winning body paint artist Sarah Attwell was commissioned by online art platform Rise Art to show that great art is for everybody, following research that revealed 1 in 6 Brits have never set foot in an art gallery. (Photo by Imagewise Ltd/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Participants of the annual “SlutWalk” march through the Israeli Mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv on May 4, 2018 to protest against rape culture, including sexual assault and harassment directed at women. The campaign, which has gained international notoriety, was inspired by group of Canadian women who launched the protest in 2011 in response to a policeman' s comment that if women want to avoid being attacked they should not dress like sl*ts. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP Photo)

Rusting old petrol pumps outside a long-closed rural village petrol station are seen on a minor road near Trowbridge, Britain, October 21, 2016. From art deco apartments in Sussex to a trendy burger bar in London, some of England's former petrol stations are enjoying a new lease of life following creative makeovers. The overhaul opportunities have been created as more than 20,000 stations closed in the United Kingdom over the past 40 years, according to the U.K.'s Petroleum Industry Association (PIC). (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)