ASME's Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years:

April 16, 1965

This black and white photograph on the magazine cover of LIFE by Larry Burrows shows the Vietcong zeroing in on vulnerable United States helicopters. The LIFE photographer had covered the war in Vietnam since 1962 and reported this article from Da Nang. On this day, Burrows accompanied a helicopter squadron on a mission where the pilot was killed and other members of the squadron were wounded. Burrows himself was killed in 1971 while on assignment in Laos when his helicopter was shot down by enemy fire.