“Ary Borges and his family live in southern Brazil like most families the Borges' love animals and have an array of cats living in their home. The only difference between the cats owned by the Borges family and the cat that is cuddled up on your lap as you read this is the Borges' cats weigh over 700 pounds and could kill you just as soon as look at you. The Borges family shares their home with nine tigers, two lionesses, a chimp and a Chihuahua”. – Amanda Schiavo via Latin Times. Photo: The Borges' family pet dog, Little, is placed on the back of Tom, their tiger, for a photo to be taken, in Maringa, Brazil, Friday, September 27, 2013. (Photo by Renata Brito/AP Photo)

Britain's Emma Raducanu hits a return against Sloane Stephens of the US during their women's singles match on day two of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 18, 2022. (Photo by James Gourley/Reuters)

A couple poses for wedding photos in front of the Saigon Opera House in Ho Chi Minh City on December 7, 2023. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

A doll's face is covered with supportive messages for government-proposed reforms during the International Workers' Day march in Bogota, Colombia, May 1, 2024. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

Miss Talavera Bruce 2017, Mayana Rosa Alves, right, takes a cigarette break with two contestants before the start of the 13th annual Miss Talavera Bruce beauty pageant at the penitentiary the pageant is named for, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, December 4, 2018. Prison authorities say they organize the annual beauty contest to encourage self-esteem, fight idleness and promote integration among the female inmates. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

Actor Kurt Tocci leaps for photographers at the premiere of the AMC series “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live”, Wednesday, February 7, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/AP Photo)

East Berliners crossing into the West Berlin on November 11, 1989 at the Potsdamer Platz, Germany. (Photo by Kai Wiedenhoefer)

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)