Vietnam: Yankee Papa - 50 Photos That Brought the War Home

Over the decades, while LIFE published dozens of photoessays by the 20th century’s greatest photographers, few combined the raw intensity and technical brilliance of Larry Burrows’ “One Ride With Yankee Papa 13” — widely seen as the single greatest photographic achievement to emerge from the war in Vietnam. In his breathtaking chronicle of a young helicopter crew fighting for their lives at the very moment America is ramping up its involvement in Southeast Asia, Burrows’ photoessay anticipated the scope and the dire, calamitous arc of the entire war in Vietnam. This picture of 21-year-old crew chief James Farley shouting to the pilot of the copter as it comes under fire and his comrades lie wounded, was the cover image of the April 16, 1965, issue of LIFE. America, the picture suggests, is in for a long, long fight.